Kirkland businesswoman and Reporter blogger Nina Bondarook passed away unexpectedly of a stroke on Dec. 30. She was 57 years old.

Bondarook was most well-known in the Kirkland community and the Eastside for her work with Startup Sisters, a company she founded in 2010. The group of entrepreneurial women helped others to launch and grow businesses through networking, education, mentoring and community involvement.

Her Reporter blog, Startup Sisters, also focused on her work helping grow local businesses.

“The Startup Sisters group is very devastated,” said Kirkland resident Molly Murrah, who also helped found the group. “Nina was a high-powered business woman. She was incredibly smart, very brilliant and was a very generous person.”

An award-winning journalist, Bondarook was a reporter, editor and photographer with various print, broadcast, cable and online news operations in Arizona, Colorado, California and Washington, including The Seattle Times Extra, the newspaper’s first online service she created years ago.

“I never knew anybody who knew so many people through business connections like she did,” Murrah added.

One of Bondarook’s passions was also dogs and she had a website called Poochie Smoochie, said Murrah.

Family members held Bondarook’s memorial service on Jan. 4 in Chicago, but friends and colleagues are also planning a memorial service for her locally on Sunday.

The Startup Sisters group is asking the community to send remembrances to one of Bondarook’s favorite shelters, Homeward Pets by calling 425-488-4444 or by mailing a check to: 13132 Northeast 177th Place, Woodinville, WA, 98072.