Expansion of Kathy’s House would serve more patients
600 people turned away last year for lack of room
Mary Kollross of Green Bay has likened Kathy’s House, a residence for patients being treated at Milwaukee hospitals and their families, to a beacon in a storm.
She and her husband, Hank Kollross, lived at Kathy’s House in Wauwatosa for several months in 2017 while he was being treated for cancer at Froedtert Hospital.
“It took a lot of the pain out of what we were going through,” Mary Kollross said.
Kathy’s House now is in the final push to raise $12 million for a new and larger building at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center.
The nonprofit organization now leases a building on the campus of St. Camillus, a retirement community at 600 N. 103rd St. in Wauwatosa. St. Camillus, which is expanding, opted not to renew the lease, which ends in 2021.
Kathy’s House has raised $9.6 million so far for the new building. That includes a $5.9 million gift from Froedtert Health. The health system also is managing the construction of the new building.
It plans to begin construction later this year or early next year. Construction will take about a year.
Kathy’s House, which had 1,502 guests last year, turned away 600 people last year because it didn’t have rooms available for them. The new building will have 36 rooms compared with 18 at its current site.
In addition to Froedtert Health, Kathy’s House has received support from the Fotsch Family Foundation, Ladish Co. Foundation, Schneider Company and Ginny and Mike McBride.
Other gifts include Steinhafels’ pledge to donate the mattresses for the guest rooms.
“We are deeply concerned about the number of guests who are turned away,” Mike McBride, a retired executive who has been a long-time volunteer at Kathy’s House, said in a statement. “It’s critical that this new House gets built as soon as possible.”
The McBrides have agreed to match gifts dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000. It is their second gift to the capital campaign for the new building.
“We hope this momentum continues,” said Patty Metropulos, president and CEO of Kathy’s House.
The organization has a letter of credit from Waterstone Bank and still will begin construction if it doesn’t reach its target. But Metropulos said the ideal would be to not have a mortgage payment.
Kathy’s House has an annual budget of about $700,000. It has budgeted an additional $500,000 in increased operating costs for the new residence.
People who stay at Kathy’s House donate $32 a night on average. The donations are voluntary.
The organization has one full-time employee and eight part-time employees. It also relies heavily on volunteers. They include people who help with check-ins, maintenance and landscaping as well as volunteer bakers who come on Wednesday and Friday.
Kathy’s House opened in 2001 with support from Judy and Dick Vogel, the parents of Kathy Vogel Kuettner, who died at the age of 39 from a rare form of cancer in 2000.
Since opening, 18,000 people have stayed at Kathy’s House. Most of the guests, such as Mary and Hank Kollross, are from northeastern Wisconsin.
While staying at Kathy’s House, Mary Kollross worked remotely, setting herself up in the library or family room or on the patio.
“It was perfect,” she said.
The other guests also became a support group of sorts.
“Everybody helped everybody,” Kollross said.
Kathy’s House accepts referrals from all of the health systems, including Rogers Behavioral Health System, in the Milwaukee area but 90% of its guests are family members of patients or patients who are being treated by Froedtert Health and the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Kathy’s House estimates that 85% of its guests are being treated for cancer or are family members of patients being treated for the disease.
About half of the people who stay at the residence are patients and the typical stay is eight days.
The new building will be on a 3.6-acre site on North 92nd Street between Doyne and Wisconsin avenues, near the Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Clinical Cancer Center.
It will have a kitchen, dining area, library, family room, fitness room, laundry facilities, courtyard and patio.
The building will have a separate wing for patients with compromised immune systems and who are at risk of infection, such as those receiving bonemarrow transplants. The rooms in the wing will consist of two-room suites, with a living area, small kitchenette and bedroom, to limit exposure to other guests.
It also will have a dedicated area to draw blood and provide private consultations for those patients.
While staying at Kathy’s House, Kollross was the coordinator for the Schneider Foundation, and she acknowledged that she encouraged the foundation to make a gift for the new building.
She also knows the challenge facing Kathy’s House as it works to meet its goal of raising $12 million.
“Those last few million dollars,” Kollross said, “are the toughest.”