St. Mary's dinner to support local family

“Kim and Greg have touched so many lives, with 4H. Kim’s very involved with goats, and they’ve always done the goat barn out at the fair,” said St. Mary’s Academy Principal Kim Koch. “Greg has been here for a number of years. Their son works in Orchard View farms, their daughter works up at the hospital at the childcare program … and they’re very active in their church.”

The soup dinner will be held in the St. Mary’s Academy gymnasium, with all proceeds from the event being given to the Johnson family to assist with medical expenses as Kim continues to battle cancer. There is no admission fee to enter, but donations are being accepted. Dinner will be prepared with supplies donated by Wamic Market, and local musician Victor Johnson will be performing at the event.

The silent auction will consist of a variety of items donated by the community. “The community has just said, oh, ‘I want to donate a meat goat,’ ‘I would like to donate a quilt,’ ‘I would like to donate just a gift basket,’ ‘I would like to donate a dessert.’ So it’s been a menagerie of a little bit and a lot of everything. So we should have a very, very nice, silent auction … for people to bid on things. And all of the proceeds … will go straight to the Johnson family,” said Koch.

This event isn’t the first dinner St. Mary’s has held to help fundraise for those within their school. On Sept. 29, they held a taco feed for the McNeel family, a former St. Mary’s family who was also touched by cancer and other medical hardships, and on Oct. 27, held a spaghetti feed for third grade teacher Caitlin Espinoza and her family, as Espinoza’s husband, according to Koch, required a stem cell transplant. Like the upcoming event in support of the Johnson family, all proceeds from those fundraisers went to the families to assist with medical expenses.

“Our thing this year is 'Ignite.' Ignite our faith, ignite our family and ignite our future. And so finding ways to do that … ways to be able to support our community, support staff, support our families, and just continue to try to show them the love that we have,” said Koch.

“That’s been how each of our events have been, we’ve donated supplies and donated food and done all of that … when the rest of our community comes in and they want to support it (the cause), they truly are supporting it. They’re not supporting paying back the cost for anything. They’re supporting the families.”

Dinner will be served at 5:30 p.m., on Dec. 1, with a silent dessert auction concluding at 6:30 p.m., and the main silent auction concluding at 7 p.m.

“This is just our one simple way to be able to share that love and support for a family that has been so incredibly supportive of their community, and would do anything for anybody. They have the kindest hearts, and we just want to be able to try to show them just a small portion of the love that they show everyone else,” said Koch.

“Kim and I are very appreciative of all the support from family, friends and the community we have received over the last 12 months,” said Greg Johnson.