BROOKINGS — The death of a friend or family member is a final decision that everyone must deal with. Sometimes it’s a child who suffers the death; often it’s an older family member. But a child suffering the death of a friend the same age? That’s tough. It was tough for Kim (Karolczak) Vig, board member of the Kelly McGeough Foundation. They were both 10 years old when Kelly died in January 1983 from complications of his battle with leukemia.

“That was the first death I ever had to deal with,” Vig said. “I didn’t understand it. There were ten of us. You never completely forget that. But what I remember most about Kelly is his smile. He was always happy.”

“Most people are confronted with death for the first time by a grandparent or an older person and not by someone from their own class, someone with whom they have social contact.

“But it probably didn’t affect me as much as some of his classmates because I didn’t go to the same school. So it wasn’t like I saw him every day. But I saw him every Wednesday in CCD (religious education class).”

Although they attended different elementary schools, Kim and Kelly received their religious education at St. Thomas More Catholic Church, where they attended classes together and received their First Communion together.

They also played T-ball together: “He was always there and smiling,” Vig recalled. “Even when he was sick, he would come and watch us play.”

Comfort and support

In 1983, shortly after their son’s death, Bill and Sandra McGeough established the Kelly McGeough Foundation to honor him. The foundation is now in its 41st year.^st Year after year, the foundation remains true to its original mission: “…to provide financial assistance to children under 18 to help pay for expenses resulting from serious illness or accidents. The foundation primarily supports children in the Brookings County area and expenses may include, but are not limited to, hospital/medical bills, travel and meal expenses, and other family support services.”

The board of trustees consists of 14 members, including chairwoman Sandra McGeough. The members meet once a month and review applications for support and funding from the foundation. Vig has been with the foundation for about seven years.

“It was deliberately chosen based on people who know what is happening to families in the city,” Vig explained about the composition of the board. “Like Elkton, Volga, so that we can learn more about what is happening in the communities: for example, when we hear that a family has a sick child or a child was born with problems.”

When such a child is identified, often through word of mouth, a board member contacts the family and lets them know how the foundation can help. However, Vig noted, “When I start with a family, I become their contact. It’s so crazy that there are families in town who don’t know what we do. But with the rising cost of health care, you want to make sure people have the opportunity (to know what the foundation does). In the time when we’re not meeting, we do a lot of emailing.”

“Plus, the media is wonderful and we can help people faster,” she added. “We help with whatever they want to meet their child’s (medical needs). Gas and meals, we take care of a lot of that.”

“But that’s up to the family. We pay them directly. They have to provide receipts and prove they had an appointment that day. Hotel stays, some people want just that because it’s going to be charged to their credit card or debit card or whatever and they want it right away.”

Vig noted that the foundation has some negotiating power when it comes to paying medical bills: “Some people just do the medical care and then we pay directly to the hospital or clinic or whatever. We take care of everything that concerns the child: what they can submit and prove.”

“Next, our treasurer calls several hospitals directly and tries to find a solution: If we pay cash today, we get a 20% discount or something like that, and the amount is deducted from the bill because we have to pay a large portion at once.”

The Foundation’s usual grant allocation is $7,500 per child up to age 18. Each application is reviewed by the Board of Directors. Amounts are not paid up front; reimbursement is made in arrears when receipts are submitted.

Vig noted that donations and fundraising are the foundation’s only source of income. “We’re looking at getting more corporate donors. We’re trying to build that up because there are more and more sick children. And $7,500 per person goes pretty quickly.” The foundation recently had its first corporate donor.

In its 41 years of existence, the foundation has provided a total of approximately $233,000 in financial assistance to 215 children suffering from a “catastrophic illness.” One of those children is one-year-old Beau Schwans.

Help Beau get healthy again

Beau, who turned 1 on July 19, is the son of Jordan Schwans and Ashley Hendricks. Beau was hospitalized in Sioux Falls for 31 days in October and November.

“When he was three months old, he got his first cold,” his mother explained. “I had taken him to the doctor a couple of times. Just a cold, we thought. He only had mild symptoms, just a runny nose at first. And then, it was Friday night, he cried all night. I just said something was wrong, something was wrong.

“So I took him to the Brookings emergency room on Saturday morning. The staff was phenomenal.

What we thought was his first cold very quickly developed into bacterial meningitis. We ended up at Sanford Children’s Hospital for 31 days.” A Sanford doctor told Hendricks her son was “a really, really sick little boy.” He was diagnosed with “homophilic influenzae,” which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes as “a serious bacterial infection, especially in children under 5 years of age.”

With the help of sophisticated diagnostics, tests and treatment with “very strong antibiotics,” Beau fought back and won. Today, Hendricks describes her son as “a happy, healthy little boy who is back on track. He’s thriving today. He’s a resilient and determined little boy. And a happy little guy.”

“I stayed with Beau – all 31 days (from October 21 to November 20) – in his room,” Hendricks said of her stay in Sioux Falls. “I didn’t leave and I didn’t come home. Jordan traveled back and forth quite a bit. So he would come down from work and go back in the evenings.”

Meanwhile, Ayla, Beau’s five-year-old sister, stayed with Hendricks’ parents, who live in Brookings. “All 31 days, just to give her a normal routine,” her mother said. And she did come to visit her little brother.

Hendricks has been one of the foundation’s donors so far, but now she would be on the receiving end: “I’ve always liked the raffle tickets and have supported the foundation through them alone in recent years. I never thought I would ever need them.”

She explained that she was made aware of the foundation by family members on her mother’s side and from the board: “They reached out and said, ‘Remember that the Kelly McGeough Foundation is here for you if you need us or whenever you need us.'”

“The foundation covered the travel costs,” Hendricks explained. “They paid for a lot of gas and some food costs. They were kind and generous and even paid some of our hospital bills that weren’t covered by our insurance.”

Total amount the foundation donated for expenses: “Thousands,” Hendricks said. “Three thousand, maybe. We wrote down all of our receipts and then filled out the form. It was a generous amount and we were grateful for it.”

A fundraiser for the Kelly McGeough Foundation will be held at 5 p.m. Monday at Cubby’s Sports Bar & Grill, 307 Main Ave., in downtown Brookings. A portion of the proceeds from food sales will be donated to the foundation.

Contact John Kubal at [email protected].