So Hoblin and co-organizer Kim Gignac teamed up with their fellow parishioners at St. John’s United Church in Mokena, Jim and Mary Ellen Naumczik, to put on a daylong event Sunday to raise money for Haitian relief through the American Red Cross. <\/p>\n
The Naumcziks, who own the Nancy’s Pizza locations in Mokena, New Lenox and Bourbonnais, already had raised a few hundred dollars for the cause through collection jars in their restaurants. But the silent auction prizes on display Sunday, including an autographed jersey from Blackhawks player Patrick Sharp and an autographed bat from White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski, appeared poised to rake in much more. <\/p>\n
“People were so generous with their donations,” Gignac said. <\/p>\n
Around lunchtime on Sunday, the fundraiser also drew dozens of people ready to help out by paying for a buffet meal or two at Nancy’s. <\/p>\n
“We want to support the cause right now by eating,” joked Jeff Lewandowski, who was there with his wife, Kathy, and daughter, Alana. “We’ll support it later today by helping out here.” <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 12-year-old Tom Hoblin and 14-year-old Kyle Jiminez did their part by manning a table filled with desserts for sale. <\/p>\n
“I think it’s nice that we’re helping people in need,” Hoblin said. <\/p>\n
“Maybe we could do something like this for the people in Chile’s earthquake, too,” Jiminez added. <\/p>\n
Mayor Joe Werner also planned to pitch in later on Sunday, and called the fundraiser a way not only to support those hurting in Haiti but to draw the community together. Mokena residents pulled together in a similar way a few years ago to raise money and collect supplies for residents in the village’s sister city, Moss Point, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina devastated the town, Werner said. <\/p>\n
“If you give $10 to the Red Cross, you might think a few minutes later, how much of a difference will that make?” he said. “But when you do it like this, as part of a community, I think it encourages people more.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Read the original article from SouthTown Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n A whoop went up in Nancy’s Pizza in Mokena around noon on Sunday as a volunteer cried, “Let’s make some money!” The goal was to raise $5,000, and the funds are heading to Haiti as part of the “Mokena Helps Haiti” fundraiser. Steve Hoblin, one of the fundraiser’s organizers, said he was deeply moved by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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