When her cancer returns, an artist sells her cafe and starts a nonprofit

Keene used to own The Starving Artist Cafe, and is again battling cancer. — Photos: STEPHEN M. KATZ/The Virginian-Pilot/TNS

KIM KEENE knows the difficulties of being a starving artist. She also knows how hard it is to live with cancer.

Keene, who lives on Willoughby Spit, is the founder and former owner of the Starving Artist Cafe on Colley Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia. But her priorities changed when she received word in the spring of 2022 that she had stage four metastatic cancer.