Heat Stroke Music Festival to benefit Coach L.A. Johnson
On Saturday, Aug. 18 Church of the Living Christ will hold the second annual Heat Stroke Music Festival at the Veterans Memorial Park amphitheater in downtown Fremont from 5 to 9 p.m.
The community concert will be held as a benefit for L.A. Johnson, who recently underwent a bone marrow transplant in Ann Arbor to treat his leukemia.
Local bands scheduled to perform include The Pinstripes and The Pete Cornelius Band. No admission fee will be charged for the event, but a free-will offering is planned. In addition, proceeds from a cook-out supper in the park will go toward defraying medical costs incurred by the Johnsons.
Johnson, known for his years of dedication to coaching and officiating youth sports, was diagnosed with leukemia in February of 2007. Since then, the Fremont community has rallied around him with prayers and support, encouraging him with cards, phone calls, and visits during two lengthy rounds of chemotherapy in a Grand Rapids hospital.
He was deeply touched by the number of people who came out for the bone marrow donor drive held in his honor in April, and when a variety of people showed-up to pray with and for him at a prayer service in July before he left for Ann Arbor.
“I feel like I’m floating on a river of prayers,” he said from his hospital room after his bone marrow transplant. “Tell everyone thank you for their support.”
Johnson needs to stay in Ann Arbor for at least three months following his transplant, so he and his wife Lori have rented an apartment there, where the cost of living is quite expensive.
“Our church had already been planning to do the Heat Stroke Music Festival again this summer,” said Pastor Andrea DeWard, “but now we’re combining the fun with a good cause. L.A. and Lori are greatly loved by the Fremont community. They’ve blessed many people, and this is a small way we can give back and help them out in their time of need.”
More information about Heat Stroke 2007 is available online at www.fremontoasis.org