Support Kathy's Healing and Family Needs

I'm Saavik Ford, a longtime friend of Kathy Ziolkowski, who is in need of help due to a combination of emergencies that have all hit her at once.

Kathy is suffering from a serious, antibiotic resistant, kidney infection--and this has hit her at the same time as her husband Dan had a knee replacement surgery (just a week ago). If you know Kathy, you know how kind and generous she is, and how she is always on-the-go and trying to do everything, despite being well past retirement age, but this infection has really knocked her back and she needs to rest. To make matters worse, Kathy & Dan support their developmentally disabled son, Little Danny (who is not so little, as many of you know!).

Dan & Danny have been driving for rideshare services to supplement Social Security and Kathy's pension, and Kathy's substitute teaching job. On top of Kathy & Dan's health situations, both of their cars are in the shop and need of a few thousand dollars worth of work to get them back on the road driving (Danny could drive now, of course Dan still needs to recover from surgery). Plus the lack of cars is making it hard to get to doctors appointments.

This is a woman who has done so much for so many. If you passed through Physics & Astronomy at Johns Hopkins in a certain era, I am sure she helped you in some way and made your life easier, whether it was a personalized tour to get you settled into campus, helping you navigate getting a US driver's license, getting you your travel reimbursements with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of flexibility (sure it's been 12 months since that trip, let's see what we can do...), and of course, always, making sure birthdays and important moments were remembered and commemorated with appropriate enthusiasm.

Now, she needs our help. Let's raise enough for her to get her cars fixed, and take some time off from work to treat this infection that has her both in extreme pain, and uncharacteristically totally exhausted.