A local business, individuals and community come together and surprise Fr. Eric Freed's family with an unexpected gesture

A year ago, Fr. Eric Freed's family learned of the brutal death of their loved one through international headlines. They made a trip up for his funeral, still in shock, and met St. Bernard parishioners and many others for the first time, sharing grief and memories with us, Fr. Eric's other family.

During that trip, they connected with some of us and sought some of us out over the course of this year, there is much we have shared; all which is private. I asked the family's permission to share what I am writing in this post.

Twice, the trial for the suspect charged with Fr. Eric's murder has been postponed and on December 17, we will know if the jury trial will proceed on January 26. The family would like to travel and be here for the trial, especially his two sisters. They family does not live locally and so there are significant costs associated and they have been working on raising funds.

All people involved wished to remain anonymous, even the person came up with a design and the person who donated personal funds to repay the business for most of the costs. The cost of printing and labor and the shirts was donated by a local business.  Some other people in the community when they heard about this effort donated. These are people well-known in the community and some from the Catholic church community. All the funds from the sales of this t-shirt will go towards helping the family.

This is not a church endorsed effort. I say this for a couple of reasons. I know some people have strong feelings about the Catholic church. I am saying this for the people outside the Church who were also affected and cared about Fr. Eric. This is for his family and for him.

Those who are not a part of the Church may not understand rules, regulations and how things work.

The business and individuals involved in this effort are a diverse group, some of us are Catholics but all of us are individuals who knew Fr. Eric and were impacted personally by his death. Those of us who are parishioners are also individuals and   are free to help Fr. Eric's family without it being a Church associated effort.

That is what it means to be Christian. That is what Christ meant in Mark 3:35 when he said "Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

Even though the people involved wanted to remain anonymous, I am making an exception in two cases because Fr. Eric's family asked me to: the person who spearheaded this effort and is the family's lawyer is Kathleen Bryson. The business who jumped in to print the shirts, not expecting anything in return, is Humboldt Republic. The family wants to thank them both. I thank them both.

I also wanted to do this post because it is important for people within the Catholic community to know that Fr. Eric does not belong to any one person, group or to the Church. He was also a teacher, a friend, a community member who reached out and was involved in HSU and the Japanese community. People who did not know him within the Church context but live in this community were also deeply affected.

You have the option of buying the shirts directly from Humboldt Republic. Humboldt Republic is also allowing me to distribute shirts to anyone who knows me from the church or the community. Shirts are $20.

Too often, we seem divided as a community but as we have often seen through many tragedies, this community comes together for each other. That is the Humboldt I wish we wrote and spoke more often about.