BY SYDNEY HOOVER
Mary Kirkendoll spends most days running her own yoga studio, working in the Eudora Giving Garden and planning with the Eudora Senior Foundation.
In between those, she plans pop-up service events to benefit residents in need, works on the Chamber of Commerce board and continues finding other ways to give back to the community.
Her nonstop commitment to serve Eudora through a variety of service platforms is why The Eudora Times selected her as its first Person of the Year this Thanksgiving.
“Being named the Eudora Times Person of the Year is both an honor and a responsibility,” Kirkendoll said. “I will do my very best to live up to this award.“
Kirkendoll is originally from Los Angeles and spent much of her adult life in New York City, but said the acceptance and community she felt when she moved to town 15 years ago was what made Eudora home for her, her husband and her mom.
“I swear that we drove down Main Street, and I turned to him [her husband] and I said, ‘I'm supposed to be in Eudora,” Kirkendoll said. “It was just a feeling that I had. And then we made it happen.”
Kirkendoll’s community spirit ties back to the time she served as a caregiver for her mother, beginning in 2004 when she brought her mom to Kansas from California. Known as “Sweet Mama Marie,” her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and died in June 2019. But Kirkendoll said her mother is still one of her biggest inspirations.
From naming her yoga studio Yoga of Kindness to helping found the Eudora Senior Foundation, Kirkendoll’s service in the community goes back to remembering Marie.
“[She] inspired every kind of advocacy that I jumped into the last few years,” Kirkendoll said.
Kirkendoll said when she got to Eudora, she saw a need for resources for seniors like her mother. That’s where she got the idea to start the Eudora Senior Foundation, with the help of Vice Mayor Ruth Hughs and other organizations in Douglas County.
The Senior Foundation launched this fall, with its first meeting Sept. 1. Kirkendoll and Hughs have been in the process of starting the foundation since 2017.
“She's just extremely giving with her time with a lot of different things, but mainly seniors,” said Pam Schmeck, a member of the Eudora Senior Foundation. “Everybody that meets her just thinks she’s great.”
Kirkendoll also started the Eudora Community Garden in May, and has seen it grow exponentially throughout the coronavirus pandemic thanks to aid from the CARES Act and community support.
Between the CARES Act and a grant from the Kansas Department of Agriculture, the Giving Garden has raised $51,000 since the start of the pandemic for expansions and other costs.
What started as a small garden on Main Street will soon be a full functioning garden on a much larger plot of land just west of the high school. Kirkendoll received a donation of a greenhouse from a community member to add to the garden, increasing what they can grow each year.
“Now it's just become this huge project, which is so exciting,” Kirkendoll said. “It's a little bit overwhelming for me because I'd never expected it to be this huge.”
Kirkendoll said she’s continuing to search for grants and other forms of funding to keep supporting the garden, which provides free, fresh produce to seniors and could also host farmer’s markets for the community someday.
Aman Reaka said he never imagined the garden would grow to what it is today when he and Kirkendoll first developed the idea years ago. He said he’s not surprised it was Kirkendoll who was able to make it happen.
“As long as I've known her, she's always got a bigger plan on how to make that work on a bigger scale,” Reaka said. “She works tirelessly on trying to take something small, and [find] a way to get people involved or a way to help people that need it.”
Outside of the Senior Foundation and the Giving Garden, Kirkendoll runs her yoga studio, Yoga for Kindness, which offers additional support to seniors in the area. She’s involved in the Chamber of Commerce as a business owner in town and worked as the interim Chamber director throughout the summer.
She also organizes Pop up Projects, or PuPs, which she promotes in the Eudora Community Facebook group for those in need in the community, some of which raise hundreds of dollars. A recent call for help benefited a single parent with two young children and a live-in grandparent who needed immediate assistance as they struggled with COVID and no income.
When asked where she finds time for all of her service work and projects in addition to her yoga studio, Kirkendoll’s answer was simple.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But I know that both of these things are really important to me. And I feel like it’s almost a legacy of my mother.”
Reach reporter Sydney Hoover at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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