COMMUNITY
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
A7
Keeping the legacy of giving alive
Carrie Young
Memorial planned
Dec. 6
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
The Carrie Young Memo-
rial Dinner and Auction
highlights the generosity of
the people in Grant County
and continues to grow after
26 years.
Lucie Immoos, a For-
est Service employee, cre-
ated the event in 1993 to
honor her older sister, Car-
rie Young, who was killed
in a car crash.
When Young passed
away, the family learned
that she purchased gifts
each Christmas for resi-
dents at Blue Mountain
Care Center in Prairie City,
where she worked.
“She had been purchas-
ing Christmas gifts out of
her own pocket for peo-
ple who didn’t have much
family,” Immoos said.
“She didn’t have much
money herself, but she did
it anyways.”
The death of her sister
devastated Immoos, but she
wanted to carry on.
“I thought to myself,
‘Am I gonna bawl and be
devastated and bawl and
bawl?’ or let’s do some-
thing good in her memory,”
Immoos said.
In September 1993,
Immoos walked out of Bear
Valley fire office with an
idea of having a memo-
rial in honor of her sister to
carry on the tradition of giv-
ing. She pitched her idea to
Eagle file photo
A suitcase display case with goodies at the 2018 Carrie Young
Memorial.
Eagle file photo
Lucie Immoos, who organizes the Carrie Young Memorial Dinner and Auction, with her
granddaughter Laikyn Hammon at the John Day Elks Lodge at the event last year.
the workers in front of the
office and Dorman Gregory,
who still donates money for
the memorial to this day,
handed Immoos the first
$50 for the memorial.
It started with $50, but
in 2018, the dinner and auc-
tion raised $31,000.
With the money raised
by the dinner and auction,
Immoos makes sure that
everybody receives some
form of heat through the
purchase of heating sup-
plies such as furnace oil,
propane and firewood.
Funds raised also go toward
groceries and other needed
supplies for hundreds of
elderly residents.
Residents at Valley
View Assisted Living, Blue
Mountain Care Center,
Mothers Creek senior home
and more around the county
receive a sizable gift certifi-
cate that goes toward grocer-
ies at Chester’s Thriftway or
to pay the electric bill.
“Now I’ve raised so much
money, when nursing homes
go to each patient, they can
ask what do you need and
what do you want?” Immoos
said. “For the people with no
family we get all of their toi-
letries, sheets and towels,
but we always try and get
them something fun.”
Immoos continued by
talking about an elderly
lady at the nursing home
that would go down to the
kitchen for a margarita.
“By God, if I live old
enough to be in the nurs-
ing home and still want to
have a margarita at night,
I think she should have it,”
Immoos said. “I made sure
she had her little margar-
ita mixer waiting for her for
Christmas.”
This year there are a
wide variety of items up for
grabs for the auction. At the
moment, there are 200 auc-
tion items including 130
themed baskets.
Such items like an etched
elk horn, hunting and camp-
ing items, University of
Oregon game tickets, a beef
basket with a $100 gift cer-
tificate plus 40 pounds of
hamburger, a load of wood
and more are up for bid.
John Day Mayor Ron
Lundbom attended the event
last year and was left in awe
at the amount of baskets
Eagle file photo
Shoppers look over the nearly 300 gift baskets at the Carrie
Young Memorial Auction at the John Day Elks Lodge in 2018.
and donations the memorial
received.
“I walked around for
30 minutes with my mouth
open,” Lundbom said.
“There were so many bas-
kets and the thought put into
each basket was incredible.
I really can’t say enough
about the effort they put
into the event, and the cause
itself of helping the elderly
is really admirable.”
The Carrie Young Memo-
rial Dinner and Auction will
be on Dec. 6, opening the
doors at 5 p.m. and dinner
starting at 5:30 p.m.
Monday - Thursday
7am- 6pm
Friday 8am - 5pm
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