Karen Garcia
Have you ever heard anyone say that Kingsburg is a cold or uncaring community? The Garcia family’s story demonstrates just the opposite. Please read how a small community produced HUGE results for a young man in need.
Hello. My name is Karen Garcia and I wanted to reach out to you about our story.
We live in Kingsburg and have had a Facebook page – jonnyneedsalift since the end of September last year. We have been fundraising for a vehicle with wheelchair accessibility for our son Jonny/Jonathan. We opted not use Go Fund acct, but instead have been doing a grassroots style fundraising campaign. I started with painting pumpkins, Jonny Day at Corsaro’s Family Pizza, Cinnamon Rolls, and Gift Wrapping. The Golden Touch partnered with us for several months, we had a big dinner with a live band and silent auction in April, Sal’s Restaurant vouchers, and finished just last week with another Corsaro’s day.
We raised a little over $37,000 and received help from a local organization for special needs for the actual conversion portion and were able to put $72,000 down on a brand new perfectly converted Traverse for our amazing son Jonathan. We only owe $17k after all of this.
This is an incredible story of God’s goodness, community, people coming together and a common goal. People were so generous to us, we had strangers from Kingsburg, surrounding communities, Bakersfield, Fresno and even out of state help us out by supporting all the fundraisers. I wanted to partner with local businesses to promote their businesses and it was always such a blessing to see them prosper in the midst.
During our last Sal’s Restaurant voucher sales on Memorial Day – Casey Dunn from Dunn’s Detailing reached out to us and offered to do a ceramic coating on our vehicle when we got it to protect it.
For our silent auction I had a John Lennon piece of artwork donated that came all the way from Liverpool for us, artists in Colorado donated artwork, jewelry, and photographs. We had an up-and- coming photographer donate her services for the evening and bless us with incredible memories!
It truly is just amazing how God worked all things out! Our church New Life Ministries has supported our family incredibly and hosted our April dinner. We raised $17,000 from that evening.
The other part of this story is Jonny and all he has been thru. He is a true miracle and has survived a lot of medical trials and been raised up from death’s door several times. He is resilient and happy regardless of his trials.
If you have a moment, check out our page Jonnyneedsalift to see our story. I know you will be blessed.
Sincerely blessed,
Karen Garcia
