Brookfield resident and District 96 student Gia Tomasewski personally delivered dozens of support cards (homemade) to Riverside Officer Christopher Kudla at the police station while Chris was on duty.
Officer Kudla emotionally expresses his gratitude to dozens of schoolchildren from the Riverside-Brookfield area that created the cards of support for him.
“I can tell you that I cannot get through more than a couple of these cards before I break down. To the parents of any of these children that read my GoFundMe posts, I thank you; I can really sense the sincere emotion and feeling that has been put into these cards. Unbelievable!” Kudla said.
Kudla’s spirit has been put to the test since the discovery in November that he has an extremely rare form of cancer – Stage 4 metastatic papillary renal cell carcinoma. Kudla, 46, noticed a lump near on his neck which led doctors to perform a CT scan that showed a baseball-sized tumor on his right kidney and that the cancer had spread through most of the lymph nodes in his body.
The children from Hollywood School made Officer Kudla a 15 foot long paper banner that they all wrote support messages on and signed for him.
Officer Kudla has vowed to keep working despite his diagnosis, so long as his health allows.