The “L.B.J. Club” story

Our compassionate and big-hearted brother Candelario “Cande” Ontiveros passed away on December 6, 2018, from cancers associated with Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome.

Every year since, on August 10, we remember Cande’s birthday with a fundraising event in his memory to raise awareness about Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome, and support the kind of clinical research that Cande chose to participate in. Cande was committed to participating in such research to support the fight against cancer and to improve the lives of future cancer patients.

The “L.B.J. Club” started in the early 1970s. The L was for Lalo (another nickname for Cande), B for Betty (a nickname for Veronica), and J for Julie. One of the first collective memories of the “L.B.J. Club” was a fundraising for our mother’s birthday gift when Cande was 11, Veronica was 9, and Julie was 6. We collected and traded in glass Coke bottles for money. Once the money was collected, Cande (our club president) would ask for suggestions for how to spend the money. We would vote, and then we’d go across the street to H-E-B or Sears for the purchase. Our choice for our mother’s birthday present was a cookie jar that reminded us of a poem about the old woman who lived in a shoe, who had so many children she didn’t know what to do.

The new “L.B.J. Club for a Cure” honors Cande by raising funds — and awareness — for a new cause that we all believe in: clinical research to improve lives.