ARTICLE TOOLS

E-mail story

Comments

Printer friendly version

iPod friendly version

Share This

Text Size: A A A A

Chattanooga: Farmer fundraiser helps Siskin Institute

By: Elizabeth Ryan
(Contact)

Included in this article

Seth Seymour

It is more of a blue collar than black tie affair, but when it comes to raising money for charity, the annual Darell Wayne Farmer Memorial fundraiser has proven that one doesn’t have to have deep pockets to give big.

Since 1993 the annual barbecue and charity auction has raised more than $30,000 for the Siskin Children’s Institute, and on Sunday about 200 people turned out at the Vulcan Materials Co. recreation area on Shallowford Road to help keep the tradition of giving alive.

“If it wasn’t for events like this, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do,” said Seth Seymour, public relations specialist for the Chattanooga-based nonprofit. “They have been very, very generous to us today, in the past, and I’m sure they’ll be generous to us in the future.”

People sat at picnic tables in the shade of the pavilion, eating plates of barbecue pork and baked beans and bidding on donated items such as hunting rifles, coolers, gardening tools and stuffed animals.

All the money raised Sunday, Mr. Seymour said, will help provide a quality education for children with disabilities, paying for speech therapy, art supplies and walkers that state funding doesn’t cover. In addition to running two pre-schools in the Chattanooga-area, the Siskin Institute also conducts research on early childhood development and offers support to parents of children with disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome.

Darell Wayne Farmer, who died in a hunting accident almost 16 years ago, loved making people around him, especially children, happy said his niece Ashley Crocker, of Bryant, Ala.

“He was always happy,” said Ms. Crocker who was 5 years old at the time of his death. “He never was upset or sad, and he’d never let you be.”

The memory of Darell Wayne’s magnetic personality is what has made the event a success over the years, according to his mother, Sarah Farmer, of Birchwood. Many of those who attended Sunday have never missed a year, she said, and she hopes to make next year even bigger than this one.

Steve Farmer, of Red Bank, said the community’s efforts to remember his brother and generously give in his honor has been “overwhelming.”

“We’re just a bunch of deer hunters and rednecks,” he said. “It means a lot for hunting buddies to gather for us, to eat good deer meat and have a good time.”

Comments