Bloomingdale East Resident Starts Foundation in Brother's Name

She can’t bring her brother back. But Jeanine Ivone is hoping her efforts can save someone else’s brother.

In January, the Bloomingdale East resident formed a nonprofit foundation in honor of her brother, Freddy, called Freddy’s Foundation. And now she is embarking on the first fundraiser for the foundation, a 5K Walk for Recovery set for Saturday, March 26 along Bloomingdale Avenue.

Ivone said she and her two siblings, including her older brother, Freddy, grew up in a relatively normal home.

“We had our dysfunctions, the same as any family,” said Ivone. “But we had two parents and we all ate dinner together.”

She can’t explain why her older brother turned to drugs. But, when he did, he quickly became addicted. By 1989, he was living on the streets, doing odd jobs to support his crack habit.

But in 1993, he checks into a residential treatment facility in Fort Lauderdale called Faith Farm Ministries and graduated from the center the next year at the age of 36.

“He never touched crack again,” said Ivone. “We were so proud of him.”

But the demons that drove Freddy to drugs in the first place continued to torment him. Two years ago, while living on his boat in Key Largo, he killed himself. He was just 51 years old.

His death still haunts his sister who wonders if there’s more she could have done to prevent his death.

“We were hugely close. It’s a terrible thing to lose someone you love like that, the most difficult thing ever,” she said.

“At Thanksgiving last year, I was having a hard time finding something to be grateful for,” she said. “And then I realized that I could have lost him back in 1993 when he was addicted to drugs. He was living a dangerous, destructive life. But, because he got help, he was with us for 15 more years. And I have to be grateful for those years.”

That night she decided to start the foundation to raise funds to send others who can’t afford it to residential treatment for drug addictions.

“Our hope is to raise $27,000,” she said. “That’s the cost of getting one addict through treatment,” she said. “My ultimate goal is to save somebody’s life.”

The first fundraiser for the fledgling foundation is a walk to not only raise money but raise awareness about Freddy’s Foundation.

“We have to start somewhere,” Ivone said. “The Susan G. Komen Foundation began because Susan G. Komen’s sister wanted to raise money to fight cancer. And now look at it. Everything is pink. Maybe in five years, people will be wearing blue and remembering my brother. If she can do it, I can do it.”

But Ivone emphasizes she can’t do it alone.

“I need walkers willing to wear the Freddy’s Foundation T-shirt and get out there and walk March 26,” she said.  

The walk will begin at 9:30 a.m. at the northwest corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and Lithia-Pincrest Road, proceed up Bloomingdale to Bell Shoals Road, cross Bloomingdale and then head back in the opposite direction to Lithia-Pinecrest, a total of 3.1 miles.

The registration fee to join the walk is $25 and each participant will receive a T-shirt, water, granola bar and lanyard with a button declaring “I finished.”

The first- and last-place finishers also will receive gift cards to Synergy Salon and Spa, Seville Cleaners and Hit the Trails. Other sponsors for the walk include Lifestyle Family Fitness, New Image General Dentistry, Wal-Mart, Huntington Learning Center, Inna’s Alterations, Raccoon’s Restaurant and Lounge, Frames by Jo, One Ho Chinese restaurant and Orange Home Accessories.

“I’m not doing this for myself but I’d be naïve to say I’m not getting anything from it,” said Ivone. “It won’t bring him back but hopefully I can save someone else’s brother. And, hopefully, this is a way to carry on my brother’s name.”

Ivone says her favorite quote is one by the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche.

“If we have our own why of life, we can get along with any how.”

“So whatever this takes, this thing is happening,” said Ivone. “This is for my brother.”

For more information or to register for the walk, visit www.freddysfoundation.org. Or contact Ivone at freddysfoundation@hotmail.com.