Geneva hosts fundraiser for impactful local family facing two serious medical procedures

When someone who has dedicated much of his life to helping the community found his own family in need of help, that community stepped up to help pay him back.

That was certainly the case this Sunday in Geneva, when a few hundred people from all across Southeast and South-Central Nebraska showed up to support Jessie and Eric Johnson.

"Everyone’s come together and it’s been so cool, because you forget how amazing the community is until they show up and it’s like, wow! They’re so nice!" Jessie Johnson said. "They’re kind of banding together to let us know that they’re supporting us, that they care about us, and to even donate to help us do that travel [to and from the hospital], makes it so much easier. That’s one less thing I have to worry about, which is awesome, because I have a lot on my plate to worry about right now."

"We’ve seen so many [people], I’m kind of flabbergasted. It really caught us off guard in a positive way, and we’ve got a lot of community involvement here that we did not expect," Eric said. 

Earlier this year in the span of a few days, the couple learned that both of their sons, Logan and Toby, would need to undergo fairly serious surgeries over the next few months. Toby's is the more serious case - he wrangles with autism, and the family has grown accustomed to frequent hospital visits and work with "a whole team of specialists."

But this year CT scans uncovered lesions inside Toby's skull and outside his brain. Those will require surgery to remove. Right after that, Logan ended up in the emergency room himself and will ultimately need surgery too, once an infection cools down. The family expects to endure both of those operations over the next few months.

"We know that we can’t make a huge financial debt reduction for them, however we just want them to feel the love of the surrounding communities, and let them know that we care, and that we’re here for them, like Eric’s always here for us," said Jill Schmidt, who organized this event as well as many others like it in and around Geneva.

Eric is well-known in this part of the state in his role as the executive director of the Fillmore County Development Corporation, plus through his work as a sports broadcaster and student mentor at area schools like Exeter-Milligan/Friend and Bruning-Davenport/Shickley. This was the area's way to support him back.

"Eric’s always there whenever we need him. He helps with the Christmas store, the fairgrounds, anything we need in our community, if we need speaker systems or announcers for our parades and stuff like that, Eric’s always the first one to say yes," Schmidt said. "And so we wanted him to know how much we appreciate that, and how much this community is behind him. We’re excited that they’re all able to be here and see and feel the love of these communities right here."

It took a few days of coordination, a full morning of cooking, and about 38 dozen eggs to make the breakfast benefit banquet possible. Schmidt reported 267 people came through the Geneva Senior Center over the course of the day Sunday to support the Johnson family, including hand-signing a poster that Toby will hang up on the walls of his hospital room when he heads in for surgery.

"This just means everything to us, that the community came together like this. It was very...unexpected, and the amount of people that have been here was just a shock to me, like this place has been packed all morning," Jessie said. "It makes me feel better because yes, people are donating which is great, but also just mentally, it’s doing so much for me to know that I have so many people that care about us, that care about our family, and that have our back."