Tom Omodt

Beloved disabled employee of Lunds Grocery Store :: February 2004

We have learned that you are a well-loved employee at the 50th Street Lund's store in Edina. You are well known in the neighborhood for your good cheer and warm greetings and for your instant recollection of many customers, not to mention their spouses and children and current events in their lives. Although you suffer from schizophrenia, you have chosen not to weather your disability in private. You talk about it openly and thereby help others lose their misunderstanding and mistrust of this all too common illness. And you have chosen to work to help others with this condition.

You exhibit the spirit the Fund wants to recognize and affirm. ln our busy and often impersonal world, a warm greeting and smile can spread like ripples on a pond. And when heart energy is beamed to others by someone who might have good reason to feel sorry for himself, it becomes an inspiration for those of us who could do so much more for each other.

Congratulations!
Elissa and Bruce Peterson, Founding Members

Sullivan Ballou letter