Mark Mikel’s Journey in Nonprofit Service

In the Inspiring Good Podcast, hosts Marshall King and Kevin Deary engage Mark Mikel, the retiring executive director of the Center in Nappanee. Mark shares his decades-long journey of service, highlighting the Center’s wide-ranging support services like food pantries, rent assistance, free baby immunizations, and more. Mark recounts the transformative Vision 2020 project, a collaborative community effort that raised over $5 million for multiple initiatives, including a new Boys and Girls Club, park, and senior housing. He discusses the importance of authenticity and transparency in nonprofit leadership and reflects on his experiences with the donor network. Mark also speaks candidly about his family, particularly his daughter Kelsey’s legacy as an organ donor, and his ongoing commitment to coaching at NorthWood High School. 

This show is a production of the Community Foundation of Elkhart County. It is powered by equipment from Sweetwater and recorded in The Riverbend building in Elkhart's River District. Editing is done by the award-winning communication students at Goshen College, home of one of the best college radio stations in the nation. Listen to Globe Radio at 91.1 FM. Learn more about the Community Foundation of Elkhart County at inspiringgood.org You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Music is provided by Sensational Sounds. Thanks for listening. We hope you are inspired and inspire good and your community.

Chapters

• 1:30 Vision 2020: A Community Collaboration
• 3:41 Leadership Lessons and Retirement Reflections
• 6:53 Challenges and Triumphs in Nonprofit Work
• 10:33 Comprehensive Services at the Center
• 27:01 Thanksgiving Tradition: The Kelsey Mikel Memorial Run
• 28:41 Looking Forward: Retirement and Legacy

Transcript

Marshall King: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Inspiring Good Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the Community Foundation of Elkhart County, which serves a vibrant community in northern Indiana, known for its generosity and strong network of nonprofit organizations. I’m Marshall King, who’s hosting this podcast with Kevin, a former nonprofit CEO who now coaches others.

Our guest today is Mark Michael, executive director of the Center of Napanee. He’s a longtime coach, advocate for organ donation, and is retiring soon from the center in Nappanee. Welcome, Mark. Thanks, Marshall. Glad to be here with you.

Kevin Deary: Good morning, Mark. It’s so good to have you with us today. Thank you.

Let’s start with telling us a little bit about the center.

Mark Mikel: Absolutely. We are a faith-based nonprofit located in Nappanee that serves the EE School district. So we have a big geographical area that we cover and about 12 to 13,000 population in that area. [00:01:00] In relation to that, we serve 11,000 individual visits a year or more between our food pantry.

Rent, utility assistance, medication assistance program. We have a clothing closet and we do free baby immunizations once a month.

Kevin Deary: And full disclosure, Mark and I have worked together and known each other 20 plus years.

Mark Mikel: Yes.

Kevin Deary: With the association between the center as well as the Boys and Girls Club of Nappanee.

Yep. And we did a project together that was incredible, it was called Vision 2020. And can you talk a little bit about that? Well,

Mark Mikel: soon after I started at the center at FCDC, Family Christian Development Center, in 2014, Larry Thompson threw the idea at me of us moving into the Boys and Girls Club space in Nappanee.

And of course I asked, well, what are we gonna do with Boys and Girls Club? And he said, we’re gonna build a new building for them behind Napanee Elementary on the soccer field. I said, well, what are we gonna do with the soccer team? [00:02:00] He said, well, we’ll develop a new park on the north side of Napanee and we’ll put a state-of-the-art soccer facility there. So things evolved to the point where Phil Jenkins, when he became mayor; Scott Kroner, superintendent at WaNee Schools eventually; and you and I started meeting about 2016, if I remember, and we had about a year to year and a half of planning. Put together our Blue Ribbon Committee and between 2017, 2018—in 11 months—we raised $5.81 million.

Kevin Deary: And crazy as it was. And by the way, Larry Thompson is the former mayor of Nappanee—Napanee—yes—who had this brainchild, and he said, what if we all got together and we figured this out. We all had strategic plans or master plans from the park department to the schools, to Boys & Girls Clubs, to the center.

And for senior housing too, because senior housing was part of that. Yes. And we, for [00:03:00] a small town, it would’ve cost us between 10 and 12 million to do everything that we had planned over our five-year planning process. But by doing it together, we did it under six. Yes. And we did it with public money, with faith-based money, which was church money, private money, business money.

Tax money. I mean, we figured out how to keep all the entities together and yet moving forward. We had to go through superintendent changes, mayor changes.

Mark Mikel: Yeah.

Kevin Deary: We had to keep city councils and our board of directors. We were forever going back and forth between our boards, making sure we were keeping everybody moving down the tracks.

So why are you leaving?

Mark Mikel: Well, actually, it kind of ties into that. You know, you and I had a theme that I picked up from Dave Engbrecht from Nappanee Missionary Church—that however we did that project, we needed to make sure that it went above [00:04:00] all the egos and all the personalities involved and that 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the road, what we did was gonna serve the community and our boards would know what our intent was.

And it wasn’t about Kevin, it wasn’t about Mark, it was about Phil Jenkins, it was about the community and serving them—that was the legacy. And I joke now that maybe 10 years from now nobody will remember that I ever worked at the center other than maybe my picture on the wall at the entrance.

But yeah, it was not about us. It was about how do we serve the community and come together and make that happen.

Kevin Deary: Exactly. And I think one of the exciting moments of my life was to have you and I present at University of Notre Dame this case management study—yeah—a study in cooperation.

Small rural towns that have 7,000 people don’t raise this kind of money and work together like we did and the diversity—

Mark Mikel: —of the organizations involved. We talked [00:05:00] about that a lot. You know, we had a nonprofit, a faith-based nonprofit, a school, a municipality, and normally they don’t get along very well.

And we got along just great. But to get back to your question of why retire now, it’s been a long haul. It’s been a lot of grind for 40 or 50 years. I look back—I started working at my dad’s gas station when I was 13, 14 years old. And I’ve held a job of some kind pretty much ever since then, whether it’s part-time going through school or full-time as a career.

And it’s time to shift gears. It’s time to slow down. It’s time to play with my grandkids since they’ve moved close to us now. And a little time with my wife. I think she’s—I joke that she’s enjoyed, as busy as I’ve been, the time having me away from her. But we’re looking forward to some travel and some things like that.

Kevin Deary: Yeah. You certainly have earned it, but our community owes you a [00:06:00] tremendous debt of gratitude for the years of service. What you have done for all of the families, particularly those that need us the most, has been special. Thank you. And it has been your purpose and your mission.

And we’re going to miss you tremendously.

Mark Mikel: Well, thank you. I

Kevin Deary: appreciate hearing that. You sit on one of my CEO round tables and you have all these pearls of wisdom for these young executive directors, CEOs that are coming up. What were some of the best lessons you learned?

Running the center. You’ve done capital campaigns, you’ve done growth models, you’ve served—and that includes you serve. I mean, you come out and talk to the clients and you are proud to give tours, but more importantly, you’re proud to serve. What are some of the best leadership lessons you’ve learned?

Mark Mikel: I think two of the things that leaders of nonprofits especially need to keep in mind are authenticity and [00:07:00] transparency. If you don’t have those two qualities working for you, or you’re not working on them, you’re dead in the water. You’ve gotta be genuine in the work you do and your desire, your passion for the clientele you serve, and the mission that you promote—and you’ve gotta be transparent.

You’ve gotta let people know what’s going on—good, bad, ugly, whatever. You know, it’s been a rough year for nonprofits and our finances have struggled this year. So when I hand that financial report to the board every month, I’m a little bit shaky, like, okay, this is probably when they’re gonna fire me.

Maybe that’s why I announced my retirement about a year ago—so they knew I was going anyway. But again, being transparent: this is who we are. This is what we do, this is what we don’t do. Knowing what those limits are as well, so that you stay in your strengths, you stay in your wheelhouse, and you don’t follow those rabbit paths that can be so attractive but don’t serve the purpose of your mission.

Kevin Deary: One of [00:08:00] the things that I think over the years—we’ve had to survive COVID, we’ve had to survive the 2008 recession; government changes, changes to regulation with nonprofits. Of course, there’s always the IRS—yeah, they always want to hear from us at least once a year. But what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced with, say, working with the board, finding quality staff, and then working and finding quality boards?

Mark Mikel: Wow. Finding quality staff—I feel like I lucked out in a lot of ways that staff found us. I’ll tell the story of Betty, our office manager. She started as a client. She was going through cancer treatment, needed some financial help with her rent and, being the person she is, she wanted to give back, so she started volunteering with the baby clinic—we call ’em leg holders, holding legs while the kids get the shots— [00:09:00] and she moved from there into working in the food pantry. And about 2018, 2019, we hired her as a clerk for the food pantry to do the clerical work, the administrative, keep track of the paperwork, the inventory, help with ordering food from Food Bank and Cultivate.

Then eventually we made her the office manager. So the joke is she really runs the place—you know how office managers are really in charge—and that I’m just the pretty face that goes out and raises money. And sometimes the pretty face part’s not too good, but you know, she found us.

She came to us looking for something that she could give, she could serve. And that really is our staff. They wanna serve the clientele, they wanna serve the community. To the point we stopped calling our clients “clients.” We call them our guests—that they’re coming into our space and we want to make them feel welcome and honor their dignity.

Board members—I’ve had some great, great board members. [00:10:00] Some you approach and you’re not sure if they’re gonna really work out—and they do. Some you approach, you think they’re gonna be great—here’s a businessman that is thriving in business—and not that active on the board then. So we’ve been able to get a good board going that way.

And you helped me a couple years ago when we lost a lot of board members just through trimming out. And I went to go recruit like six or seven more and you said, “No, two or three—make sure they’re quality,” and that has paid off for us, especially as we’ve gone through this transition.

Marshall King: Yeah. Mark, Family—the center, or Family Christian Development Center—has a long history in the southern part of Elkhart County.

We kind of jumped in without even talking about all the things, all the services you offer. It’s a long list and you talk—I love that you have a former volunteer who’s now the office manager and used the term leg holder. You do a lot of things out of this building and have for a long [00:11:00] time, and that requires a lot of partnerships as well.

But what is the range of services that you offer?

Mark Mikel: Well, I mentioned the food pantry. We have about 5,400 individual visits or unique visits with that every year. Rent and utility assistance—we help up to 10 families a month, $300 per episode. And we help you once a year and we partner with the township trustees, with Open Door Nappanee, Salvation Armies. John Andrews does a great job of pulling those resources together to keep people in their homes or keep the electricity on for them.

Baby Immunization Clinic—Dr. Lisa Orange started that in 2000 as a way for families to get a well-baby check without having to go through a doctor’s appointment. And we get the vaccinations from the State of Indiana Department of Health, and we don’t charge an administrative fee for the administration of the shots. We just give them and help out the families. [00:12:00] Now a little bit of confession—transparency here. When I applied for a grant to hire the nurse, Meredith Tig, to run that program, I put that transportation was an issue for a lot of our patients in that.

And so getting to Goshen or Elkhart to the health department or, you know, Goshen Health over at the hospital. The reason transportation is an issue is about 80% of the clientele there are Amish. And so they take advantage of that. One of my Amish board members—I mentioned that the state was impressed how many Amish we have getting immunizations, that nowhere else in the state are they doing it that well.

I said, well, you know, Dr. Lisa’s got a great relationship with the bishops, and Meredith listens to the moms. If they don’t want a certain shot on a certain day, she doesn’t do it. And, well, it was Virgil Yoder—he said, “And it’s free, Mark.” We take advantage of what’s free. But in return, like this summer, we get a lot of fruits and vegetables and produce, and there’s a [00:13:00] sewing circle that provides blankets and quilts for Christmas Jubilee.

So it comes back to us that way. The medication assistance program—can’t say enough about Cheryl Stump and how she has brought that program where we had probably 150 clients the first year I was there and she was able to find and provide $350,000 worth of medication through pharmaceutical programs and other ways to get those medications for the long term. And now we’re down to about 12 to 15 clients a year and maybe a hundred thousand dollars of meds. We’ve been able to help people be sustainable on their own that way.

Clothing closet—completely run by volunteers, all donation. If it’s items that are way out of date or stained or torn, we bag them up. Faith Mission picks ’em up and they either use them in their thrift shop or turn ‘em into rags and sell them in the thrift shop that way. We have [00:14:00] a backpack program on weekends; we help WaNee kids have food through the weekend. That’s a partnership with Cultivate Food Rescue out of South Bend and now out of Elkhart. And we do a summer lunch program where we hit the city parks—Snapping, Wusa—and kids can get a free lunch Monday through Friday if they want to do that.

Kevin Deary: You touched on the Jubilee, the Christmas Jubilee.

Can you tell us a little bit more about how that started and [00:14:30] what that is?

Mark Mikel: That started out at West Park Pavilion actually. Joanne Andrews, our founder, began that, and we’ve partnered Toys for Tots for 20-some-odd years now. And we do the collection. We have volunteers that put the boxes out in the businesses, restaurants, places in Napanee and Wusa, collect them early December.

And on the second Saturday of December, we’re set up in the gym for parents to come in and do their shopping for Christmas. If they were gonna have a rough Christmas, they can get two or three gifts for their child, a couple of stocking stuffers—and we go beyond what Toys for Tots does. We have coats; we make sure there’s coats available for every kid if [00:15:00] they need it.

Hats and gloves. We’ll get fruit and cookies and books. Heather Bon Trager from Northwood—the librarian at Northwood High School—orders books and has some of her students help her distribute the books that day as well. It takes about 120 volunteers to pull it off. I’ve seen board members like Lou Boni walk in that gym for the first time and start crying.

They’re overcome with how impressive it is—the number of families that we can serve then.

Kevin Deary: And Lou obviously is a legend down in the WaNee area—yeah—longtime principal in the NorthWood school systems and still giving to the community.

Mark Mikel: Yes, he is.

Kevin Deary: And matter of fact, I believe you’re still gonna be giving to the community because you’re a coach.

Mark Mikel: I am a coach.

Kevin Deary: Talk a little bit about your coaching.

Mark Mikel: I have coached cross country and track at NorthWood High School since 1998. There were seven years when I was working at Bacher that I wasn’t [00:16:00] officially on contract, but I was still a volunteer—got there when I could. But if I can brag for a second: in track and field, every year I’ve been under contract except that first year, we’ve had at least one athlete or relay team at the state track meet—single-class sport. So, you know, football, basketball, softball, baseball—take that.

But we really have a nice program for cross country and track. I ran in college, loved the sport, and had the opportunity to start coaching back then when I was pastor at First Congregational here in Elkhart. The board gave me permission to go play in the afternoon with the kids.

Kevin Deary: I thought about running once, but I got over it quickly. I’m more built like a linebacker in football. We don’t—

Mark Mikel: Oh, I’m now.

Marshall King: But yeah, I mean, none of us have runner’s bodies. It’s just that one of us is a coach and good runner, and one of us was a mediocre runner, and the other is, you know, is Kevin. Kevin. So it’s Kevin.

Kevin Deary: So you talk about Joanne. Joanne was the founder, Family Christian Development Center. [00:17:00] Was that the late ’90s? What year was that?

Mark Mikel: ’96. 1996.

Kevin Deary: ’96, I remember that.

Mark Mikel: We opened the food pantry.

Kevin Deary: I started in ’94 here, and so I remember watching FCDC open up and a great partnership with the churches.

Mark Mikel: Yes. That’s really where it started. It actually wasn’t a church. It was before our big 2020 vision project—the original Missionary Church building on L Street—and it was small.

Very small. We were pushing the seams and not user-friendly as far as ADA and as far as people navigating steps of an old church.

Mark Mikel: Yeah, we had—clothing closet, for example—we had three different rooms to shop in on two different floors and storage wherever we could find space. Now everything’s in one room and the storage is right next there at a huge walk-in closet–type space for clothing closet storage.

Kevin Deary: Isn’t it amazing how much the center has grown?

Mark Mikel: Oh goodness.

Kevin Deary: And you’re so much more than what the original vision was, but so were most [00:18:00] nonprofits because they are always pivoting to meet a need. Yes. What are some of the biggest needs that you’ve seen in the community over your years?

Mark Mikel: The one I’ve seen grow the most is the need for some housing and utility assistance—particularly housing.

You know, we’ll get NIPSCO bills that are $1,200, $1,300. We’ll get people that are two to three months behind on rent, and we have to work at getting those resources pulled together to keep those families stable. The food—when I started, a busy day in the food pantry was 30 to 35 people.

Now we’re averaging 45 to 50 every day that we’re open. So that’s been another area that’s grown and developed.

Marshall King: What can you tell us about poverty or the working poor in Elkhart County and what have they taught you?

Mark Mikel: Well, you know, one of the misconceptions is that the people who come to a food pantry are working the system. [00:19:00] They’re lazy. They really don’t want to work. Seventy-five to 80% of our families that use the food pantry—there’s at least one adult working in the home. And either they’re not making enough of a living wage to sustain their family or the grocery prices have gone so high that they use us to supplement their groceries.

So I’ve learned—goodness—that they’re not the lazy, system-sucking bats or draculas—whatever you want to say—vampires, that’s the word I want—that a lot of people think they are. They’re wonderful human beings. They’re funny. John and I will sit down there and talk to the guests while they’re waiting to shop.

And this thought came to mind when we were in the old church building. We would hear people on their phones waiting to shop saying, “Well, I’m down at the church. I’m down at my church getting food.” They saw us as their congregation, as their place of worship, their place of faith. [00:20:00] And so as we were getting ready to move, I kept challenging the staff and the board: how do we take that spirit over to Marion Street? You know, it’s gonna be an old school building. It’s been a Boys & Girls Club. It doesn’t look like a church. And about six months after we moved in, I was walking through the food pantry on a day it was open and I heard somebody on their phone say, “Well, I’m down at church getting my food.”

And I looked up and I thought, okay, you heard me—it’s happening. And now what’s happening is food pantry opens at one o’clock on Tuesday and Thursday. Sometimes as early as 9:30 in the morning, we’ve got a set of patio furniture out back under a canopy, and folks are gathering there and having their coffee and talking and communing and fellowshipping and supporting each other.

And it’s wonderful to grab a cup of coffee and sit down with them sometimes and just listen to their stories and what’s going on in their lives.

Kevin Deary: Yeah. You’ve created a family atmosphere for these folks. And [00:21:00] you’re right, because a lot of their children were Boys & Girls Club members.

So we had a chance to also serve them. And very proud—particularly of their schools. Yes. Many of them churched. Yes. Some of ‘em not. But this is as close as they’re gonna get to a church for many of them. And they have this feeling of belonging at the center. And it has to do with how your staff and volunteers welcome them, as well as yourself.

There’s a sense of family. So you have a family.

Mark Mikel: I do.

Kevin Deary: And I was kind of hoping you’d tell us a little bit about your family and then also tell us about Kelsey.

Mark Mikel: Kathy and I have been married 44 years now. High school sweethearts. Colleges—two different colleges—we had that long-distance relationship going through college.

And for whatever reason, in a moment of insanity, she said, “I do” [00:22:00] back in 1981. We have four daughters. Our oldest, Emily, lives in the Benton Harbor/St. Joe area. She is a professional clarinetist/woodwind. She gives private lessons, she plays in a couple of municipal bands and orchestras.

She’s been at the Wagon Wheel, she’s been at the Lerner, she’s played with the Elkhart Symphony. Just a talented, talented musician, and she and her husband Chris have made a home up there.

Maddie and Brandon were in Texas—San Antonio—had our first granddaughter, Louisa, there, and about two and a half years ago, they decided to move back to the Midwest. The funny part is when Brandon asked me for my blessing, he said—he was getting ready to graduate from IU—he had two job offers, both in Texas. “Maddie’s okay with this, Mark, and we’re never moving back to Indiana.” Here they are. They just recently moved a mile from us. So now that Kathy’s retired from Memorial Hospital after almost 43 [00:23:00] years, she’s babysitting a couple days a week.

Marshall King: Brandon has learned the hard lesson that a lot of others have—that you don’t say “never” about moving somewhere. Or staying somewhere.

Mark Mikel: Oh, I give him a hard time about that all the time. But they’ve since had another little girl, Blair. So we have two granddaughters that are close to us.

And then McKenna, our youngest, is a kindergarten teacher in Denver and just thriving out there—except she tore her ACL skiing last February and had that surgery, and she swears she’s never getting on skis again. So we’ll see. But Kelsey—Kelsey was our second daughter. And in August of 2004, she was involved in a multi-vehicle accident.

On the second day of her junior year, she was getting ready to go pick up a friend to go to the Jimtown–NorthWood football game that Friday night. She’d been out at Union Center Church of the Brethren to interview for a part-time daycare position ’cause she loved kids and they loved her.

And the next morning when we were told that she was brain dead, we [00:24:00] had already had the conversation that we wanted to support her decision to be an organ and tissue donor. Kind of surprised the family coordinator from Indiana Donor Network—she was ready to give us the whole sales pitch and we were like, “No, people are waiting for her organs. Where do we sign? Check all the above. Let’s get going.” And we’ve been very active with Indiana Donor Network ever since then. They took such good care of us that first year. McKenna and I have been honored to be on the Donor Family Advisory Council. Started that in 2016—I was one of the first that they asked to be on that.

It helped that our case manager was the director of aftercare at that point and started the program. And then last year I was voted onto their governing board. So I’m up with the big hitters in Indianapolis on that now. And that’s been quite an honor to be there. First I said I don’t know that I fit in that echelon of [00:25:00] CEOs and surgeons and the people that are on that board, and our CEO Kelly Tremaine said, “I want your nonprofit brain and we need people outside of 465.”

Kevin Deary: Not to mention—

Marshall King: —you are a CEO yourself.

Mark Mikel: True, true. Mark, what was Kelsey’s legacy in terms of the number of—like, who—how many people were impacted by that donation?

She was able to save four lives that weekend. Her lungs, both of her lungs, went to a 23-year-old college student in Ohio. Her right kidney and pancreas went to a 39-year-old security guard who lived near Indianapolis. Her liver went to a 15-year-old in southern Indiana—a girl who ran track and was in gymnastics—and her left kidney went to a two-and-a-half-year-old, developmentally disabled little girl named Doctor.

And we’ve had the privilege of meeting her and her family, and she is now [00:26:00] 23 years old—23 and a half—and will never be what we all consider “normal” or a “productive member of society.” But the impact she’s had on her family and her church and her community has been huge, including our family—working with and loving somebody with disabilities.

Marshall King: And the Thankful Four, like you—I—you talked about the involvement with the donor network and how you’ve done that and how that’s grown over the years. I think it’s remarkable that your family has put on a local event to honor your daughter and her memory by raising money for a scholarship in her honor every year on Thanksgiving weekend. And I don’t do it every year, but when I go down there, I get emotional every time because you have leaned into this community and they have leaned back and held all of you. And every year you see it on display at Thanksgiving—on Thanksgiving morning when you gather at NorthWood and do a little run. Tell us [00:27:00] what that is and how it works.

Mark Mikel: It actually started three years before Kelsey died.

I was getting our cross country kids and a few other of my running buddies together on Thanksgiving morning. We’d meet at the Methodist Church in Wausa and just run the mile square, because we got tired of going up to Niles and run the same route, getting the same T-shirt, and paying the same $18 and having to hustle back to get to Aunt Mary’s for Thanksgiving dinner.

So the day after Kelsey’s funeral, Jack Leiger Jr. and Dan Boris somehow got 80 people to meet us at the middle school to run the next morning, including five of the area cross country teams. And afterwards they said, “You know, Mark’s done this silly little run on Thanksgiving. We want everybody back here Thanksgiving morning. We’re gonna run the four miles and raise money for a scholarship.”

And they told me to order 200 T-shirts and I told ‘em they were nuts ‘cause it’s Thanksgiving and people have to go places and you never know the weather. We had 328 participants that first year, and it has grown as high as 950. Since [00:28:00] COVID, we’ve been in the 650 to 700 range, but in 21 years now, we’ve awarded over $120,000 in scholarships in Kelsey’s memory.

Kevin Deary: Talk about a legacy. So you’re moving into retirement. Yes. What are you most looking forward to?

Mark Mikel: I think I’m most looking forward to doing something because I truly choose to do it—not because I’m feeling obligated or need to, or have to have a paycheck, or I’ve got a board or a staff counting on me being there and doing what they expect me to do.

Kevin Deary: What are you gonna miss the most?

Mark Mikel: I’m gonna miss the clients, the staff, the people I’ve worked with. Seeing that change and that transformation in lives has been rewarding wherever I’ve been, whatever I’ve done for the last four years. But to not see that on a regular basis is gonna be difficult—different.


What are you gonna miss the most? Uh, I'm gonna miss the clients, the staff, the people I've worked with. Um, seeing that change in that transformation in lives is, is, has been rewarding wherever I've been, whatever I've done for the last four years. Um, but, but, uh, to not see that on a regular basis is gonna be difficult.

[00:29:00] Different, 

Kevin Deary: and I know you don't like to hear this, but. Uh, you are a legacy and your legacy of work and love and compassion, not only through Kelsey's journey, but also through the schools and your coaching and your mentoring. And I'm so glad that you're gonna continue to coach and, and to mentor, uh, the, the, the athletes, student athletes that are coming up through Northwood.

Uh, you have been coaching long enough to know that you probably coached some of the. Parents of the students that you've had? 

Mark Mikel: I am on my second, uh, second generation kid right now. She just, she's a freshman. Yeah. 

Kevin Deary: And the legacy continues and I think it's important that when we do retire from service, community service, that we continue to fuel our tank.

Yep. Uh, because that's important, but also capturing those moments with family, uh, particularly with Kathy, your wife, and with your, and now you've got grand babies. And, uh, I know that you're a playing grandpa [00:30:00] because I know that I've heard they like to climb you like a jingle gym. Uh, but I'm, I believe we had a game of tag the other night where Louisa 

Mark Mikel: kept making up the rules as we went.

Kevin Deary: Yeah, well get used to it. 'cause it doesn't change, it just keeps on happening. But we're so happy for you and we're so grateful for your, for your legacy and for your service. One last question for you, 

Marshall King: mark. What, what 

Mark Mikel: gives you hope? It's, uh, I go back to when Kelsey was in the hospital and the doctor who was taking care of her and CCU stopped me on that Saturday afternoon while we're, they were working on tissue matches and things and he, he kept saying, how do you people do this?

And I said, what? He said, if that my, my daughter, I'd be falling apart. I couldn't be here. I couldn't be up and functioning like you are. I said, look around. We've got a community of faith family that surround us [00:31:00] and lift us up. And I told you I had a, a line about our, our vision 2020. The thing I keep going back to is we have a gracious God and a generous community, and as long as those two things remain of that hope.