Scholarship committee keeps memory alive

DeOnofrio was awarded her degree posthumously.
By JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- As Victoria Pantoja lay in bed, the words kept floating through her mind.
Each time Mary DeOnofrio had taken Pantoja's hand at the funeral home, she had said the same thing.
"Please don't forget Kim. Please don't let her be forgotten."
Ever since that day, Pantoja has worked to keep alive the memory of Kimberly Ann DeOnofrio. The 21-year-old Youngstown State University social work student died in March after living with ovarian cancer for more than three years.
"What her mom kept saying to me rang over and over in my ears," Pantoja said. "Kim was just so adamant that she was gong to win. She was going to beat this and she was going to help other people beat this. Her determination is what we all caught.
"She was just not going to give up."
Pantoja, 41, also a YSU social work major, serves as vice president of the Student Social Work Association at YSU. She also is chairwoman of the Kimberly Ann DeOnofrio Memorial Scholarship Fund Committee, which works to create a scholarship in memory of their friend. Criteria will be a YSU social work major who has a 3.0 or higher grade point average and is committed to working with chronically ill patients.
Goal
Starting in September, the committee has worked toward a $10,000 fund-raising goal to create a $500-per-year scholarship. Members have sold thousands of candy bars, held raffles, and sold coffee and hot cocoa. Next, they plan a $25-per-person Valentine's Day dinner, dance and reverse raffle to be held at the Mahoning Country Club.
Pantoja said they must sell more than 100 tickets to make money; 400 will ensure that they reach the $10,000 goal. (Call (330) 941-1598 for ticket information.)
"They're working very hard and it just touches my heart that they would do that," Mary DeOnofrio said. From the YSU president and the Health and Human Services dean to professors, staff and students, DeOnofrio calls the YSU community a "wonderful ... amazing group" who "have touched a family in their loss of their daughter."
"They just amaze me that she wasn't forgotten," Mary DeOnofrio said. "They all just give of their time, but it's more like they give of their hearts."
Roses
In December, the fund-raising committee ran out of the 150-plus roses they sold in memory of DeOnofrio at YSU's winter commencement ceremony. Had Kim been alive, she would have graduated that day.
Instead, Kristen and Kerri DeOnofrio carried Kim's cap and gown across the stage and accepted a bachelor of social work degree in their older sister's name.
"She was very, very committed to the field of social work, a very, very strong individual and very courageous as well. She set a really great example for people," said Dr. Joseph Mosca, chairman of the Department of Social Work at YSU. "We felt that, given her conviction and her commitment in receiving the degree and given her commitment to the field, it was appropriate to award the degree."
Kimberly Sheward, a secretary in the social work department said Kim "really, really wanted to be a social worker."
"Most of us on a daily basis are complaining about this and complaining about that ... and she never did that. She was so gung ho until the end. I think we all learned a lesson from her.
"She couldn't help but touch you. ... She really lit up a room when she smiled and her determination, I've never seen that determination in a student before."
Diagnosed in high school
DeOnofrio was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 and was home-tutored so she could graduate with her Austintown Fitch High School class of 2000.
At YSU, she'd do homework after returning from weekly chemotherapy treatments in Cleveland. She was a member of the Centurions Honor Society and the University Dance Ensemble and was a student office assistant in the office of the dean. She went to class in a wheelchair in her last months, attending up until the week she died.
Besides her mother and sisters, DeOnofrio is survived by her father, Richard; The family lives in Austintown. An older brother, Rich, is of Florida.
"She went through a lot and she was going to be a survivor," her mother said. "She always had a smile on her face and never complained."
DeOnofrio wanted to be an oncology social worker and volunteered doing just that at the Cancer Care Center of St. Elizabeth Health Center (once pulling off her wig to help comfort a woman lamenting the chemotherapy-induced loss of hair). She also volunteered for the American Cancer Society by speaking in various cities, founding the YSU Chapter of the ACS Colleges Against Cancer, co-organizing the first ACS Relay for Life fund raiser at YSU and representing the county at a summit in Washington, D.C.
She also inspired Pantoja and other classmates to start a Relay For Life team. They participated in the 2003 event in Austintown, two weeks after DeOnofrio's death, with the team name "Kim's Angels."
"She was so caring -- I don't know how to explain it. She was just so charismatic," Pantoja said. "She really had zeal for life because she believed she was going to beat cancer. ... She was going to find a cure. That zeal, that fight, that inspired us all."