When Bob Coletti talks about his late wife, Brynne, the stories come fast, vivid, and full of motion. She was the kind of person who made life feel larger the moment she walked into a room. She celebrated big. She believed big. She expected “big” of the people around her, not because she demanded attention, but because she saw potential and insisted it was worth chasing.
That spirit now continues through a $10 million gift from the Brynne and Robert Coletti Family to NCH, strengthening oncology care with a focus on women. Brynne passed in December 2024 after a courageous battle with brain cancer. She and Bob were married for 43 years. The decision to give was not sudden or symbolic. It grew out of the life they shared and from Brynne’s steady belief that when something can be made better for someone else, it should be. As Bob said simply, “She wanted to help out NCH.”
NCH will recognize the gift through the naming of the Bob and Brynne Coletti Women’s Cancer Program, expanding access to cancer care in our community. For Bob and their children, the program is less about a name and more about continuation. It is a way to carry forward the way Brynne moved through the world, noticing people, caring deeply, and expecting that even in the hardest seasons, dignity and compassion should never be optional.
A gift shaped by the way Brynne lived
Brynne did not do life halfway. As Bob says, she “lived BIG.” She dreamed big, celebrated big, and loved big.
That bigness showed up in the details that mattered most: how people were treated, what they carried quietly, and what could be made better if someone cared enough to notice.
Bob saw it firsthand during her cancer journey. While much of her specialized treatment happened at Duke, Brynne also received care close to home, including regular infusions and local testing. Over time, those visits sharpened something Brynne already had in abundance, empathy paired with a practical instinct to improve the experience for others.
Brynne had little patience for cramped spaces and impersonal systems, especially when someone was already carrying the weight of illness. She would see what others accepted as “just the way it is” and ask why it could not be better, kinder, more human. That perspective helped shape the Coletti family’s decision to invest in the future of oncology care at NCH.
Their family chose to focus here, in the place Brynne called home, and on the kind of care she experienced firsthand. The decision was less about strategy and more about heart.
The heart of her legacy was people
If you asked Bob to describe Brynne, he will tell you, “I never met anybody like her.”
He talks about the way she noticed the person behind the circumstance. The waitress’s daughter, who had to drop out of school during COVID. The student who needed a computer, a windbreaker, and someone to show up on move-in day. The families who just needed a little help bridging a hard moment. Brynne did not just give. She followed through. She made it personal. She made it bigger than money because she made it about dignity.
In one story Bob shared, Brynne traveled to meet a young woman she was supporting through the Guadalupe Center, visiting her at college on move-in day. Brynne brought what the student would not have been able to provide for herself, then did something only Brynne would think to do: she bought pizza for an entire dorm so the student would feel known, welcomed, and seen. She understood that belonging is its own kind of medicine.
Bob often says she believed in people, sometimes more than they believed in themselves. She chased her dreams, and she pushed others to chase theirs, too.
“She did big.” Now her name will, too.
Brynne’s legacy is also a legacy of women lifting women.
This gift will strengthen NCH’s oncology services and further advance the expanding oncology program. It will also enhance NCH’s clinical collaboration with Northwestern Medicine, increasing access to expert consultation, second opinions, advanced treatment protocols, and strategic program guidance for patients throughout Southwest Florida.
For Bob, the purpose is deeply personal and quietly hopeful. “Our hope is that this gift honors her memory by helping women receive the care, support, and hope they need at every stage of their journey,” he shared.
A love story that became a community story
When Bob reflects on the years of treatment, he speaks about consistency. Showing up. Staying steady. Never leaving her side. They shared 43 years of marriage, and through illness, that foundation never shifted.
That love, and the family it built, is part of what makes this gift more than a donation. It is a continuation.
Because Brynne’s story was never only about what she accomplished, though she accomplished plenty. It was about how she made people feel. It was about the way she noticed. The way she showed up. The way she made others bigger, braver, more supported, more themselves.
And now, through the Bob and Brynne Coletti Women’s Cancer Program, that same force will be felt by women and families across our community, in exam rooms, infusion suites, surgical recovery, and the moments in between.
Brynne lived big. This gift ensures her legacy will, too.