GoFundMe account<\/a> has been set up to help pay for medical expenses for Barks and funeral expenses for Mr. Siemer.<\/p>\n\u201cThis will sound cliche, but Matt was literally the nicest guy I\u2019ve ever met in my life,\u201d Bozif said. \u201cHe and his wife are such selfless individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barks is the interim executive director of Chicago Women\u2019s Health Center, a nonprofit that provides health care access to women and trans people.<\/p>\n
At the time of the crash, the couple had recently returned from a vacation and were driving south to retrieve their two dogs, German shepherd mixes named Korra and Opal, from family members who boarded the pups while they were out of town.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatt was really just genuinely a good human and lived every part of his life with compassion and concern for other people,\u201d said Kamari Thompson, Mobile Care\u2019s associate executive director.<\/p>\n
When he started at Mobile Care, the group had one mobile care unit. It now has four units that help more than 3,000 patients a year with a focus on asthma and dental care.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe set out to do hard things and to have a laugh and a smile and a good time while doing them, and his legacy will live on,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit\u2019s work was personal for Mr. Siemer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe spent a fair amount of time in the emergency room as a kid who had asthma,\u201d said his sister, Marissa Siemer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so incredibly proud of his work with Mobile Care and his leadership there,\u201d she said. \u201cHe had this kind of amazing magnetic energy that would draw people to him. People felt seen and heard by him in a way that left them with a good feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Siemer was born in St. Louis on Oct. 29, 1982, to Mark and Pam Siemer, a salesman and an educator, respectively.<\/p>\n
Mr. Siemer attended Truman State University before earning a master\u2019s in philosophy from Duke University.<\/p>\n
He lived in Washington, D.C., and New Jersey and had worked in nonprofit grant writing before moving to Chicago in 2010.<\/p>\n
Mr. Siemer, who worked up to 70 hours a week, loved board games, reading, throwing a Frisbee with pals and walking with his wife and dogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people are hesitant to say hello to strangers when you pass them on the street, but they\u2019d go out of the way to say hello, and they were beloved in their neighborhood,\u201d Bozif said.<\/p>\n
A Mass to celebrate Mr. Siemer\u2019s life is planned for Jan. 19 at 11 a.m. at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Florissant, Mo. A memorial celebration in Chicago is in the works. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Siemer\u2019s primary concern in life was how to be a good person. \u201cIt\u2019s something we\u2019d talk about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-357075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}