Steve Bob Fundraiser
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Over the years we have been fortunate to have amazing community support for fundraisers for various non profits, organizations we believe in and at times for guests who have become friends. Recently,Steve Ryan, aka SteveBob(yep the Bob Steve Pizza Guy) and our resident Handyman and one of our biggest supporters is in need of some extra help.
Steve was diagnosed with stage 3b Lung Cancer in 2020 and after failed treatments of chemotherapy and radiation, Steve was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer shortly thereafter. Steve has been out of work due to his cancer. His wife Karen felt it was best to take a leave of absence from teaching to be Steve's caretaker and to be by his side as much as possible. We are hoping to raise money to help with a prescription for a therapy that is not covered under his insurance which costs nearly 7k.
If you recall, In 2010 when we were rebuilding the HT, Anne and I did the majority of the construction work. We didn't have a ton of money for the buildout, we had no construction experience but we thought "certainly we can do this!" Weeks into the project when we realized that it was actually really hard and I had remembered that Steve had offered to help us out if we needed as he had much more experience working on a project of this size then we did. I showed up at Steve's workplace, rolled out the blueprints on his desk and started crying...from that day forward Steve came to the HT every day after work doing minor things and getting us lined out on the bigger pieces of the project. That lasted a few days and then one morning at about 8am Steve showed up with his tool belt and a truck load of power tools, I remember saying to him "why aren't you at work?" and he said, "I am! I told my boss I needed to help the Hot Tomato and he said take as much time as you need, lets get the HT open!"
If it wasn't for SteveBob I think we would have been closed much longer than those long 9 months. Not only did Steve help us build a restaurant he taught us about friendship, community and teamwork. He had so much belief in our organization that he was going to do everything he possibly could to get those doors open. And open they did!
Steve has been a fixture of the HT for the past 11 years, whether he is sitting in the dining room with his friends(pre-covid), working on another remodel(he has helped on at least 5-6) or fixing all the things that constantly break in a restaurant. He has done it all out of the goodness of his heart, never expecting anything in return. In honor of him and his awesomeness when we reopened we named a pizza after him, originally the SteveBob and later changed to the current BobSteve.
Our main goal is to raise 7k to help with his prescription therapy and anything over that will go to other medical expenses. We will be donating all sales from the Bob Steve Pizza for the week of Feb16-20.
If you arent able to get a pie there is also a GoFund Me page set up here https://www.gofundme.com/f/khxc9-steves-fight-against-cancer