Football’s Pass Shows How Big A Heart Can Be

This may be the longest pass play in Seattle Seahawks history.

From the players, to a disabled woman in a small Eastern Washington farm town who laterals to The Spokesman-Review’s Christmas Fund.

For now the Wilson pigskin with the dozen or more scribbles from the likes of Terry Wooden, linebacker, and Howard Ballard, 332-pound right tackle, rests in a box at the newspaper.

But this ball has flown across the state.

In time, it will go to the Volunteers of America, one of the charitable agencies that oversee the annual effort to raise money and buy Christmas food and toys for those in need around Spokane.

The Christmas Fund football passed through the hands of someone who knows what it means to be in need.

“But I care about people who need more than I do,” said Diane Daugert, 45, of Almira, Wash.

Diane moves slowly with the help of a four-footed cane.

Her cerebral palsy, dyslexia, speech difficulties and bad hearing would qualify her for a food voucher at The Christmas Bureau, which opens Monday.

But Diane hasn’t asked for that.

Instead, she decided that one of her most valuable possessions, a signed Seattle Seahawks football, should be used in some way to raise money to buy food, toys, and Christmas cheer for others.

“She just thinks that there are a lot of people who need more than she does,” said Jim Johnston, a friend who rents a room from Diane in Almira.

Certainly there are many in need in this city.

Government figures show that 12.5 percent of Spokane families live in poverty. This figure is 50 percent higher than the Washington state average and 20 percent higher than the national average.

Spiralling Spokane housing costs in the last five years means the city has risen from one of the least expensive cities to one of the most expensive places of its size in the country.

Still, it’s remarkable that Diane Daugert thinks of herself as someone able and compelled to contribute to the Christmas Fund.

True, she has a roof over her head. She has a friend to watch out for her. Her health and personal freedom remain fragile, but intact. Compared to bad times she has endured before, her life is good.

It has not always been that way.

When she was a toddler, Diane’s mother disappeared.

Diane was found eating from trash cans in Western Washington and was moved into foster homes.

A combination of cerebral palsy, a tumor in her head that blocked her hearing, and dyslexia led her to be classified as mentally retarded.

“But I wasn’t,” she said. “I had my problems; I was disabled, but I could think and I wanted to take care of myself.”

A long road through a series of jobs as a housekeeper and home health care worker eventually led her to Almira, a town of about 350 people southeast of Grand Coulee Dam.

Divorced, she retains a home, shops garage sales, and rents a room to Jim Johnston.

This fall, Johnston decided he would try to help Diane raise money for a computer she hopes to purchase.

Johnston contacted a coach on the Seahawks about donating a signed football to Diane.

Johnston suggested the football be sent to the Almira Lions Club. “I might have got the cart a bit before the horse,” he said later, admitting that he forgot to ask the Lions about the fund-raiser before he received the football.

This posed a problem for everyone.

The Lions Club didn’t want the Seahawks thinking that the group was part of a scam so the club felt it needed to do something with the football.

But since Jim Johnston wasn’t a member, and because the club already had a number of fund-raising events under way at the end of the year, the Lions took a vote last week at their luncheon and suggested the football be sent to The Christmas Fund.

Diane thought that best, too.

She didn’t need a football.

She thought of the stories Jim Johnston had read to her from the paper about the need to raise nearly $380,000 by Christmas to provide a meal and a toy for 26,000 children and adults who are expected to line up at the doors of the Christmas Bureau.

Again and again she told Jim she wanted to help others who have greater needs than she does. So this week Jim and Diane drove the football to Spokane.

In a few days, Ken Trent, executive director for Volunteers of America, will pick up the ball and run with it. He thinks perhaps a Seahawks booster club might use it to raise some money for the Christmas Fund.

The gift is most appreciated, Trent says, and he has vowed to find a way to complete the longest pass play in Seahawk history.

The cheering won’t be as loud as the noise in the Kingdome on game day.

But somewhere, some family with a wolf at the door and little else will have a meal, a toy, and a bit of joy thanks to a bit of razzle dazzle from Diane Daugert, Jim Johnston, the Seattle Seahawks and the Almira Lions Club.

There is an easier play in the Christmas Fund playbook. You may send donations to The Spokesman-Review Christmas Fund, Box 516, Review Tower, 999 W. Riverside, Spokane WA.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the Editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday on Perspective.