Community Rallies Around Aurora Restaurant Owner Battling Cancer

AURORA, IL — The community is rallying around the owner of Aurora's only soul food restaurant as she battles stage four cancer, according to a GoFundMe campaign started for her.

Delicia "Lisa" Bowling, who ran Mandy's Soul Food Kitchen in Bolingbrook until February 2025, operates The Soul Spot — Aurora's only soul food restaurant — at Fox Valley Mall. Merely a week after opening her Aurora restaurant, she found out she had stage four cancer, according to a report from ABC7 News.

Soon after her diagnosis, Bowling suffered a blood clot that traveled to her heart, requiring emergency open-heart surgery, wrote the GoFundMe organizer, Vera Giles-Norris.

"When she was able to give back, she did so much sowing. And so, now in her time of need, it's her time to reap," Bowling's family friend Giles-Norris told ABC7 News.

Giles-Norris started the GoFundMe to rally around Bowling in hopes of raising $16,000 to help cover ongoing medical care, recovery needs and business expenses.

"Her food has brought comfort, her presence has brought warmth, and her generosity has made people feel at home when they needed it most," Giles-Norris wrote in the fundraiser. "Her restaurants have never just been about food, they’ve been places of love, healing and connection. Today, the woman who has fed so many is the one who needs support."