Thanks to a thank you note, Isom IGA owner gets another big boost toward flood recovery
When we last saw Gwen Christon, she was reeling.
She was turned in on herself in grief, despair and shock after her life’s work — the Isom IGA in Letcher County — turned into a sodden, stinking mess of rotten meat and mud-covered groceries after six feet of floodwater invaded it on July 28.
“I was overwhelmed, but I do believe the Lord is helping me all the way through, walking through it with me and calming me down and moving me forward,” she said recently.
Christon worked her whole life at the IGA, first as a cashier, then as the owner with her husband, Arthur. She’s the kind of person who would slip free groceries to customers who desperately needed the help and then say, pay me when you can.
So when Father Jim Sichko — the Papal Missionary of Mercy from Lexington — handed her $20,000 in cash a week later to help her recovery, she cried and then did the kind of thing she does. She wrote him a thank you email.
“I love my community and I want to see God’s blessings in someone else’s life,” she wrote. “Thank you Father Jim for sharing your love of Christ on our IGA family.”
But she also included $2,000 from the money he gave her as a tithe to the church to help others.
“I was amazed, and I was moved with so much compassion,” Sichko said, who noted that in his years of philanthropy, no one has ever written him a thank you. “But I also said, this is not ending here.”
So Sichko went to work in the mysterious ways of the Lord that he has adopted, and on Wednesday, he handed Christon another briefcase of money, this time $75,000 to help reopen the store. The tears flowed again, not just from Christon but her employees who had once again gathered at the now-clean IGA to witness the next step of recovery.
Michelle Maggard has worked for Christon for 10 years. “Gwen has stood by me through so much,” she said, tearing up. “She’s that strong woman who gives you strength when you don’t think you’ve got any. If there’s anyone who deserves this, it’s her.”
On Wednesday, Isom was also visited by Greg Ferrara, president of the National Grocers’ Association and John Ross, president of IGA, who came to cheer on Christon’s plans to rebuild. The store is stripped clean, washed of the toxic mud that clung to floors and shelves. She’s working with consultants to put in the latest freezers and coolers. But it’s still a long and expensive process, and the soonest they can hope for is a January reopening.
For Ferrara, Christon’s story struck home. His 99-year-old family grocery in New Orleans was destroyed by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.
“The vibrancy of small communities is tied to grocery stores,” he said. “This community will recover faster if the grocery is reopened.”
The IGA is a local community center, Maggard said, helped by the regulars who gather every morning for coffee in the small group of tables at the front of the store, and bolstered by the cooking of Carol Caudill and her famous chicken and dumplings. Caudill made a plate of them for Father Jim to take back to Richmond.
So is this a story of good karma visiting itself upon a deserving soul?
“I don’t use that word,” Father Jim said of the Buddhist and Hindu term. “But it has always been my belief that what goes around comes around, the fact is that’s what happens when you do good. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Karma or commandment, whichever you choose. In this traumatized region, where so many are helping others out of unimaginable misery, there’s is plenty to find.
“I try my very best,” Christon said. “You always have to get up every morning and ask the Lord ‘what do you want me to do today?’ When he opens those doors, I try to let people see a little bit of Jesus in me every day.”
This story was originally published September 1, 2022 at 10:11 AM.
