Barn fills for fundraiser at Georgia Johnson's table

Truth in advertising was on display Sunday at the Andrew Johnson family farm barn on Beaver Marsh Road. Over 110 people came for an old-fashioned country pot luck, challenged to bring dishes matching the BBQ ribs, corn on the cob, spot prawns, baked potato bar and fruit crisps provided by or overseen by Georgia Johnson, chef, caterer, bakery owner and for 16 years food services director at La Conner schools.

Billed as “There’s Always a Seat at Georgia’s Table: A Celebration!.” it was that, as customers, colleagues, cousins and friends came out to donate, support and show their love for this Skagit Valley poet and friend. The afternoon was a fundraiser to pay $9,450 in legal fees Johnson incurred challenging a negative evaluation in May, resulting in her employment not being renewed for the coming school year by Superintendent Whitney Meissner. Her sister, Maggie Wilder, wrote in the invitation: “Georgia and her attorney were successful in refuting every single lie . . . in that evaluation.”

Retired administrators from the school district, bakers and chefs, bakery and catering customers, fellow Skagit River Poetry Foundation board members, art lovers and past purchasers of auction dinners, recent school colleagues and long time friends came in support, visiting and eating at tables adorned with helium balloons anchored with cooking jar lid bands.

Wilder sold raffle tickets and emceed the short program. She assured the crowd that she was Georgia’s biological sister and not a nun, though a friend had asked if she had joined a convent, having seen her name often in the Weekly News as “sister Maggie Wilder” for the times she spoke at school board meetings last spring.

Wilder extolled her sister for mentoring kindness, sharing that kindness was a main topic of Johnson’s and that gathering together was essential. “This is Georgia’s church. . . . If you’re hungry, she’s going to feed you. If you’re hungry for learning, she’s going to [teach you]” ending her litany with “if you’re hungry for lunch she’s going to feed you.”

Wilder briefly reviewed Johnson’s culinary career, including her getting Washington law changed to allow school districts to purchase “not just the cheapest food, but the most wholesome and nutritious.” Applause followed.

Johnson spoke briefly. It is not the Skagit Valley landscape but the community and culture that makes the area special, she said. “This is the perfect community, all of us coming together as often as we can.”

Saying she “stole the kindness thing from the Dali Lama,” she also championed kindness as a religion: “This is a reflection of who we are. We have to keep loving each other.” She then read three poems.

Johnson earlier introduced Charlotte Underwood, a La Conner resident, therapist and decades long friend. Underwood reflected on trauma and warned that being alone heightens the ordeal. She championed community for healing, noting we need each other and the community responded to the transgression against Georgia in a way that made Underwood proud.

The two had the room stand and sing “This Little Light of Mine.”

Suzann Keith, an English teacher and La Conner Education Association communication specialist, provided a summary of the school district’s turmoil, starting with the LEA’s and the support staff union’s June votes of no confidence in the superintendent and moving through the rounds of meetings and letters, including letters to the community printed in the Weekly News. A sidebar sums up her remarks.

Wilder took the mike late to share that the superintendent and school board members had been invited to attend, but none did.

The evening ended with desserts and the Hope Island Band.

In an email Monday, Wilder reported that the “love-fest expressed itself in amazing ways, including in financial support for Georgia yesterday . . . [and] we have some to go before Georgia’s legal expenses have been met, and I’m confident the community will continue to respond as they learn of her situation.”