Community bands together to help student athlete recover

This shirt is on sale as part of UT's efforts to raise money to help Janelle recover from her injuries.

Read our previous story on Janelle Noe here.

Following the severe burn injury that University of Toledo student and cross country runner Janelle Noe suffered on the night of Jan. 15, the UT community has rallied support in order to raise funds during her recovery process.
A GoFundMe page was created Jan. 16 by Noe’s friend Joe McVeen to garner financial support for Noe’s medical costs. The page was created with a goal of $30,000. As of Tuesday evening, Feb. 9, the page has raised $23,381. Interested parties can donate, view updates on Noe’s condition and express support at www.gofundme.com/8pjjudhb.
A few of Noe’s teammates wanted to find a way to raise funds on her behalf. Tony Zaworski, associate athletic director of finance, offered to sell T-shirts and donate proceeds to her recovery. Zaworski runs Rocky’s Locker in Savage Arena and at the Franklin Park Mall, and so they realized they had a good vehicle already in place to sell T-shirts.
Zaworski said the initial ideas for the T-shirt came from flyers put together by some of Noe’s teammates. The final design featured a saying which reads, ”She believed she could, so she did.” The shirt also has a cross country arrow, Noe’s initials, the Rocket symbol and a red ribbon sparked by a gesture from Noe’s teammates.
“The other thing that kind of stands out — a lot of her teammates started wearing red ribbons in her hair … to kind of remember her as they were competing in knowing that she couldn’t be there. So we just incorporated all those designs into it and it turned out really well,” Zaworski said.
At first print, 250 shirts were produced. In two days, they had already sold 230 of them and realized they needed to reorder.
Zaworski said that in addition to the T-shirt fundraiser, outside parties have contacted the department to see what they can do to help fundraise. Northview High School, of which Noe is a graduate, Dave’s Running, and Second Sole all reached out and asked if they could also sell the shirts to help raise money.
“So between the three outlets and all the folks who are trying to help around town, I believe we’ve printed 750 shirts already, which is a lot,” Zaworski said. “I don’t have counts what the running stores or any of those folks have sold or how Sylvania’s done, but in our store alone plus online, we’ve done like 350 shirts I believe.”

Photo courtesy of UT athleics
The shirts are selling for $20 and 75 percent of the money brought in from the shirts goes right to Noe. Zaworski said the cost to print each shirt is around $5.
“Between the original person that had helped them out with the GoFundMe and what we’re doing here, the hope is that you’re giving the family everything they need to kind of get through this from a financial standpoint,” Zaworski said.
Noe’s cross country coach, Linh Nguyen, said he has been in to visit Noe quite a few times and that she’s doing well throughout her recovery process.
“I’ve been to see her a bunch of times and she’s doing well … The thing about burns is that the healing process is, a lot of times, the most painful process because the nerve buds are growing back,” Nguyen said. “She’s actually in a lot of pain right now, but she’s doing really well and the doctors seem to think that she’s healing at a really good rate, which is probably due to her fitness and her youth.”
Nguyen said Noe is keeping a positive outlook and working with physical and occupational therapists with the goal of getting back to her everyday life.
“Every time I see her and talk to her, she’s extremely positive. She’s very determined — she wants to get back,” Nguyen said. “Every time I see her, she’s in there working really hard, trying to get everything back. She wants to be able to get back to school and get back to running and just kind of normal everyday life stuff. She’s really, really positive and really focused.”
Nguyen said that some of Noe’s teammates and also future roommates visit Noe almost daily. The teammates are Marissa Rossetti, Emily Wyrick and Maya Pacaric, but they were not able to be reached for comment at this time.
“There are some girls who are going to be her roommates next year that are kind of like her three closest friends, and they’re all on our team. They go and see her almost daily I think, at least one of them. They’re all really close with her.”
Any donations to Noe’s recovery fund can be mailed to UT athletics at 2801 W. Bancroft St., Attn: Tony Zaworski with “Janelle Noe Recovery Fund” written in the memo. Donations by credit card, can be called into Zaworski at 419-530-2412.