Catherine Eckart receives a special Valentine from local businessman Seth Goodman

 

[February 15, 2020] 

On Friday afternoon, Catherine Eckart was the recipient of a huge gift from local businessman Seth Goodman. Goodman had conducted a contest of sorts, seeking out a single individual who was deserving of such a gift.

He had done so by asking the public to email him with a nomination of a person they felt was deserving of the gift. In all, Goodman said he received more than 450 emails nominating people who could use a better vehicle.

Goodman said that among those emails there were about 20 that came in nominating the same person, Catherine Eckart.

Catherine’s story is one of those that makes us smile and say it must have been kismet that Goodman decided to do this particular activity at this particular time.

Catherine is 82 years old. She works at Lincoln College and has for the last 25 plus years. She has a large family that includes six children that she raised on her own as a single mom. Catherine had a car, and had finally paid it off and had the title in hand. The day she received the title, she also had to serve as an emergency runner for her grandson. It seems that he was due to play in a sporting event and had arrived at the school with the wrong jersey. He called on grandma to help solve his problem. As she rushed to get the proper attire to the youngster, her car slid off the road and wrecked. The car was totaled, and Catherine was at least temporarily without wheels.

In her search for another vehicle, she went to Graue Chevrolet where she was dealing with salesman Mitch Brewer. She was shown a 2012 Chrysler 200 that she liked a lot, but decided it was too pricey, so she and Mitch moved on to another vehicle.

In the meantime, Goodman was visiting with Brewer and Chris Graue owner of the Graue Chevrolet and the same car came up as a good used vehicle with low mileage that would be the one Goodman would purchase to give away.

Catherine and salesman Mitch went on with their dealing and she chose another car. On Friday afternoon after getting off work she went to Graue thinking that she was meeting Mitch to sign the papers on the car she had finally chosen and drive it off the lot.

Instead, Mitch led her from the sales room to the shop area where a large number of her family members (many of whom had nominated her) were waiting to share in the moment.

With Catherine at his side, Goodman read the following statement.

“Life is about giving.

“Giving of your time, attention, and abilities.

“With that being said, this Valentine’s Day I made the decision to give back to one lucky recipient within the Logan County community. Someone who has given unselfishly of themselves time and time again, and deserves to be rewarded for such.

“First, I would like to thank Mitch Brewer and Graue Chevrolet for helping me make this possible. They helped me pick out the car as well as make arrangements for today’s surprise announcement.

“Secondly, I would like to thank and congratulate the lucky recipient. When I made the decision to donate a car, I asked the public to nominate individuals that they felt were deserving. Today’s winner was nominated many, many times.

“Some of the nominations for this individual went as follows – “a woman who may not be much to the rest of the world, but to our family she is our whole world,” “a woman who values faith and family above all else,” “raised six children as a single parent more than 1,000 miles from her family in Vermont,” “worked at Lehn & Fink, and now Lincoln College – where she has been for the past 25+ years,” “prideful to a fault, yet unwavering of her loyalty to her children and grandchildren,” “the glue of this family unit and lives her best life through her family,” “fiercely independent person who seldom asks for help” – the list truly goes on and on.

“She has six children, 16 grandchildren, and way too many great grandchildren to count, one family member said.

“The recipient recently totaled her car while taking a jersey to her eighth grade grandson who had brought the wrong jersey to a game. While in route, her car slid off the road and into the ditch – where it was totaled. She had just made her final car payment and received the title in the mail that same morning.

“With all of this being said, the winner to me was a clear choice with the 450+ nominations that were received. Catherine Eckart – the world is a better place because of you and today, I want to gift to you this new car – and hope that it serves you and your family well for years and years to come. Thank you for being you – and for all that you are.”

For a moment, it didn’t really set in for Catherine what was going on. She thought that because so many of her family members where there, they were involved in paying for the car, and that was not going to do. She at first said there was no way that she would allow the kids to spend that kind of money on her. However, when it was made clear that the car was a gift from Goodman and that no matter what, he would have given it to someone today, she became more accepting.

With a smile and a hug for Goodman and his mom Gaynor, who delivered a bouquet of flowers to go with the car, Eckart was overjoyed by what had just transpired.

She took a few minutes to check out her new wheels, and then to pose for a shot with her family, noting to everyone that while the group was large, it was “not near all of them.”

After doing a little paperwork, Eckart was on her way home behind the wheel of the exact car she had wanted in the first place.

Goodman noted while waiting for Catherine to arrive that he thought it was a pretty cool story. He said there were a lot of people nominated, and several were nominated more than once. He said it was a difficult decision, but when he looked at all of Eckart’s story put together by the multiple nominations, he knew that choosing her was absolutely the right thing to do.

Congratulations to Catherine, it is obvious that Friday was a Valentine’s Day she will not soon forget.

[Nila Smith]

Note: While Seth Goodman is the Mayor of the city of Lincoln, this gift had nothing to do with the city and city funds were not used to pay for the vehicle.