Sisterhood Spotlight

On the heels of Women’s History Month, excited to feature a woman nonprofit leader who is so personally led to make a difference. Can you share a little bit about what your nonprofit does?

It’s an honor to be featured in your Sisterhood Spotlight as a woman nonprofit leader, especially after just celebrating Women’s History Month in March! I was humbled to receive an award from the Richmond Times-Dispatch as one of the 12 “Women Who Drive Richmond” for being a leader and innovator at the forefront of my field.

To be honest, starting my nonprofit, 2 End The Stigma, was never on my radar! I was an Army wife for many years and a stay-at-home mom with my two boys, Carter and Christian, as my husband, Marc, would deploy often for 12-18 months at a time. I relished in the fact that I was able to be so present in their early years, but I was mainly the sole parent and had to be the jack of all trades. This required me to be structured, strong, energetic, independent and “hold the fort down.”

I had the idea to start a scholarship fund to help those struggling with addiction to receive the help they so desperately deserved after devastatingly losing my twin brother to fentanyl poisoning. I was so grief stricken that I just started blurting things out and said I wanted to do a fundraiser and call it “A Night For Scott.” It took off from there!

2 End The Stigma works to educate about addiction recovery and connect individuals and families to resources and community programming. After a few years of success, I had this epiphany that I wanted to work with adolescents in early education and prevention. I am really excited as our 2 End the Stigma (2ETS) team is starting to work more with adolescents and young students at The Chesterfield Recovery Academy and VCU Rams in Recovery setting up scholarships at both to continue to support our community. Most recently, we branded our 2ETS Emotion Wheel and are starting to talk more with the students about coping mechanisms and ways to verbalize their feelings in the hopes of avoiding substance abuse.

Tell us about your family and your brother, Scott.

I grew up in a very loving and strong household. My Father was a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army, and we moved around often. I’m the baby of five kids, although technically not the baby, as I have a twin brother, Scott, who was born 5 minutes before me. I have fond memories of family dinners, mass every Sunday, summer vacations to Puerto Rico, annual Christmas trips to Ohio to visit family in our station wagon – it was the 80’s – and so many more wonderful memories as a child. You could say we had the “Beaver Cleaver” family, and I always felt so blessed.

Scott and I had a close bond, one that was unbreakable, and he always protected me. I used to be shy, and he looked out for me always. He was always a little goofy growing up, loved to tell everyone we were twins! In high school, he grew into a handsome young man, catching the eye of a lovely foreign exchange student from Brazil. They had a deep connection until she was tragically killed in a car accident. Scott never recovered from this and turned to marijuana as a coping mechanism to numb the pain. I firmly believe this trauma led him down the path he took.

Many years later, Scott was running gyms in Manhattan Beach, CA and suffered a back injury while working. He was put on OxyContin through workers’ compensation, and this woke the beast like we had never seen. It completely destroyed Scott. We didn’t realize it, but Scott was being overprescribed by many doctors and was consistently taking OxyContin daily for three years! When a pharmacy realized this, he cut the prescriptions off, and Scott desperately turned to a “friend” taking what he thought was OxyContin. Scott didn’t know it, but the pill was laced with a lethal amount of fentanyl, and he died in a Starbucks parking lot grabbing a cup of coffee while onlookers watched him struggle for 20 minutes.

It took us six months to have a funeral for Scott. We didn’t know what to do as our family was on autopilot trying to navigate this, and we wanted to lay him to rest properly. After the funeral, I woke up the next day devastated… What was next? I couldn’t let this wonderful man who meant everything to me leave a legacy behind that he died from drugs. He was so much MORE than that! He visited me at every duty station while my husband was deployed because he was worried I would be scared at night with the boys alone; he sent me Mother’s Day flowers; we talked or texted every single day; he donated much of his time to homeless shelters and was a devout Catholic. He was GOOD, his heart was HUGE, and I wasn’t going to let anyone forget that.

I made a vow to Scott that I will do this forever if he stays on this journey with me, and I am 100% certain he is driving this train. The “2” in 2 End The Stigma reflects how we are making an impact together: two hearts beating as one.

What should all Virginians know about fentanyl poisoning, and how can Virginia Women+girls (W+g) come alongside this cause?

When Scott died, I had never heard of fentanyl. No one believed that he could have died from JUST ONE PILL – and now you hear it so often that people are almost desensitized by it. We have a real problem on our hands with the opioid crisis, particularly with fentanyl poisoning, as the overdose numbers continue to rise and have become the leading cause of death in Americans aged 18-45, according to the CDC. “Fentanyl is the single deadliest drug threat our nation has ever encountered,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram quoted. I truly feel it’s critical that we come together to make the change Virginians so desperately need, through more education programs for our youth, same day services for those struggling and making more resources available.

From your family’s experience, what has been helpful in your grief and work to build awareness, and what resources should people know about?

Raising awareness on the disease of addiction, and in particular fentanyl poisoning, has been a great way to cope with my grief. I feel that even if one life is saved due to our efforts, then it’s all worth it. Scott always told us to never be afraid to share his story if something happened to him… and that is exactly what we are doing in order to normalize the need for help. All For Scott yesterday, All For Scott today and All For Scott always.

My family and 2ETS Team has made it our priority to make resources available through our website (www.2endthestigma.org) as well as our 2ETS Community Day that we host annually. It’s free to come out to get more information about organizations and resources in the area, as well as hear from experts to educate our community. I am a firm believer that power is in numbers and partnerships are essential, and we love having volunteers join us at all of our events!

As a nonprofit entrepreneur and leader, what is one of the biggest challenges you have faced?

I am lucky to have had a lot of support and success. I always want to be taken seriously, but I have a personable side too, and I think that’s very important when storytelling. I will say that sometimes I am conflicted running this organization as a business; my head will say one thing, but my heart says another. I am very intuitive and follow my gut, as it usually points me in the right direction, but I am blessed to have a strong team that is just as passionate and invested in our mission as I am. I am met with some resistance when it comes to speaking with kids at schools. Not all schools are as receptive as I would like, which is a challenge I will continue to work on.

About Jill Cichowicz

Jill Cichowicz, Creator and Founder of the nonprofit 2 End The Stigma and A Night For Scott Fundraiser, was born in Virginia but moved around quite a bit due to her father being an Army Pilot. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations with a minor in Marketing from Virginia Commonwealth University, then moved to Fort Bragg to become the “perfect Army wife” serving as FRG Leader and volunteering countless hours at each Post she moved to with her husband, Marc, and two energetic boys, Carter and Christian. They retired after serving 25 years and five long deployments, and moving back to Richmond was important to be around Jill’s family once again. 

After losing her twin brother, Scott Zebrowski, to fentanyl poisoning on February 28, 2017, she created her annual fundraiser to benefit those struggling with substance use disorder (SUD) and ending the stigma associated with the disease of addiction to normalize the need for help. Her fundraiser has been voted The Best Charity Event in Richmond (2019, 2020) and first runner-up (2021, 2022). Due to that success, she began 2ETS Community Day as well as the annual Fairways For Scott golf tournament.

Jill does national public speaking on addiction, has written for blogs and podcasts and partners with local recovery organizations such as Rams in Recovery, Chesterfield Recovery Academy, CARITAS and Real Life Community Center. She also volunteers at local food banks in addition to serving on multiple boards in her community. Most recently, Jill was honored as one of the “12 Women Who Drive Richmond” for her “tireless efforts to bring hope, light, and awareness to one of the most important causes of all time.”

She continues to advocate for those voices no longer heard and for those battling today as a way of channeling her grief in honor of her twin brother that she loved so much, to include working with Governor Glenn Youngkin and First Lady Suzanne S. Youngkin. In her down time, she loves spending time with her boys and hoping that her work will make an impact on them. She is blessed with so much support from her doting husband and community.