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KENNEWICK -- Smoking almost killed Kennewick businessman John Lee, though he's still using cigarettes.
But seven years after a double-lung transplant, Lee no longer smokes. Instead, he sells them to funnel money to his one-man nonprofit, Northwest Lung, which assists patients undergoing lung transplants in Seattle.
Lee's store, Johnny's Tobacco Shop and Espresso Bar, is an assortment of odds and ends.
What started as a cigarette and cigar shop grew into one of the area's largest NASCAR memorabilia dealers. It's also the Tri-Cities' only drive-through printer ink cartridge operation, and is complete with an espresso machine and assorted flavored syrups.
The 63-year-old Lee works the counter most days of the week, often sporting his NASCAR gear. He essentially runs and funds his nonprofit from the West 10th Avenue store.
It's not a big operation, but it has little overhead.
"Northwest Lung has no rent because the store pays the rent," Lee said. "Northwest Lung has no phone bill because the store pays the phone bill. Northwest Lung has no electricity bill because the store pays the electricity bill."
Lee, who smoked his last cigarette in 1990, founded Northwest Lung in 2004, after undergoing a double-lung transplant March 16, 2003. Shortly after, he opened his Kennewick store.
"Since we've first started, this store has supplied over $50,000 cash to Northwest Lung," Lee said.
Because of his own experience, he knew the strain the operation puts on people's lives. Not only is it a complex surgery, but the University of Washington Medical Center is the only hospital in the Northwest that performs it.
Getting a transplant meant Lee's life in the Tri-Cities was uprooted and replanted in Seattle. After his operation, he wanted to ease that transition for others undergoing lung transplants, so he began Northwest Lung.
"My initial vision and mission was that I'd rent one or more apartments and use the profits from the business to pay for that, and in the meantime seek funding in donations from businesses and so on," Lee said.
His vision became a reality in 2005 when he rented a one-bedroom unit at Bitter Lake View Apartments in Seattle. "It was a relatively nice unit for someone to stay in, as opposed to some drab apartment."
Lee's a self-proclaimed businessman, but his foray into the nonprofit world hasn't been without challenges in finding money to expand his operation. "I'm just an entrepreneurial, meat-and-potatoes business man. I buy and sell stuff," he said.
He's received a few donations, but no grants. Northwest Lung assists lung transplant patients from across Washington, Oregon, Montana, Alaska -- and he believes that may have discouraged some people from donating.
"I began to find out that nonprofit giving, charitable giving, is a territorial thing," he said. "People want their money to stay in their community."
Though grants have proved elusive, Lee has pressed ahead. Between 2005 and this past summer when he ended his lease at Bitter Lake, Northwest Lung housed four people in the apartment.
Lee said one person who stayed there is still alive. Numerous others requested his assistance but died before they could receive new lungs.
Joyce Miller, a 68-year-old from Hamilton, Mont., spent more than two years in Northwest Lung's apartment until getting her lung transplant. She went home in April, though she had to return to the hospital in October for reasons unrelated to her transplant, said her husband, Carl Miller.
If it weren't for Lee and Northwest Lung, Miller said he wasn't sure how his wife would have afforded to stay in Seattle while awaiting her lung transplant.
"He's a nice guy, he gave us an apartment rent-free," Miller said. "He sure helped my wife."
Lee is now trying a new direction that he hopes will allow him to help more people. He's working with the nonprofit's board to begin offering grants that would go toward paying people's rent or assisting with medication instead of renting a single apartment.
"Our new program is going to let us help a lot more people in little ways, but for them it's a big way," Lee said.
The irony of Lee's endeavor -- using money from tobacco sales to fund a nonprofit to help people undergoing lung transplants -- is not lost on him. But, he said, "Who better to (assist with) lung transplants than smokers?"
He said his store also puts him touch with the very people he's trying to help.
"A very large portion of the amount of people who come in, if you ask them, say they want to quit," he said. "I don't push anybody, but if they make mention (that) they want to quit, I talk to them."
One way he does that is by importing electronic cigarettes, which give users a dose of nicotine with each drag but without other harmful chemicals found in cigarettes. Lee uses the electronic cigarettes to wean smokers off tobacco before they need his nonprofit's service.
As Lee talked about Northwest Lung, a woman came in with her nonsmoking husband and asked about electronic cigarettes.
Ten minutes later, she chose one, paid for it and turned to her husband. "You might be saving my life," she said, then kissed him on the cheek.
Lee looked on, knowing that smoking kills. But he's trying to find ways for it to also save lives.
-- Drew Foster: 509-585-7207; dfoster@tricityherald.com
