Blessing from a Bar for Hurricane Michael Victims

Carmody's Irish Pub Holds Fundraiser

DULUTH, Minn.- With beer on every table and football on every TV, it looks like a typical Sunday at Carmody’s Irish Pub. But today is no ordinary Sunday, and these are no ordinary patrons.

“It’s really nice that everybody paid attention to the invitation and came out to see us,” said Jonathan Lee.

Newlywed Duluth natives Jonathan Lee and Jessica Chatterton are here not just to enjoy a drink.

Their life was one of the thousands affected by Hurricane Michael in Florida. An experience, they say, like no other.

“There really is a blue sky in the middle,” said Jessica.

“And weirder than that: because the eye was small, it was round. We were in the middle, we could see it twisting,” Jonathan replies.

They rode out the storm at Jonathan’s parents’ house, in a different neighborhood.

Meanwhile, their house faced the onslaught, the storm felling trees in their yard, and on their car.

“Until you see it, until you’ve experienced that deathly quiet and that grim look that people have to escape the devastation of a hurricane, you don’t know how lucky you are,” said Carmody’s owner, Eddie Gleeson.

Gleeson put on the fundraiser, knowing all too well the horrors of a hurricane, having gone through two while living in Florida.

While this started out as a fundraiser for Jonathan and Jessica, it took a different turn.

“We’ve changed the focus of the fundraiser, because I work for a school in Panama City called the Panama City Marine Institute,” Jonathan said.

The school is a tuition free public school, helping students grades 6–12 through disabilities, or poverty.

After the hurricane, the 100 students were displaced, some without homes or families to go back to.

“This is going to help bring them back home, it’s going to buy them clothes, it’s going to buy them food, because they’re not going to have anything for a while.”

“And this school for a lot of them is where everything is for them. So that’s what this is for, now,” he said.

While the state of Florida has reserve plans for schools, Michael delivered a blow no one expected.

“If government can’t do it, then we need to help,” Gleeson said.

And help they did, expecting to raise a couple thousand dollars from this event.

The fundraiser included a taste of Florida, with a crawfish dinner free with a $5 donation. Those attending could also enjoy live music.

Carmody’s has hosted almost two dozen disaster relief fundraisers in the last 15 years.

While Gleeson remarks this is unfortunate, Duluth has always managed to come to the rescue.

“The generosity of this community is well noted throughout the United States.”

If you’d like to donate to the Panama City Marine Institute, their website is http://amikids.org/get-involved .