Update + Fundraiser 2025

Happy Birthday, Kendall!

It’s that time of year again when we gather to do a good turn in honor of Kendall’s birthday and celebrate his life by giving back.

New This Year

We’re proud to announce a two-year partnership with Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity. Through our birthday fundraisers in June 2025 and June 2026, we aim to raise $55,000 to sponsor the construction of a home for a family in Asheville. This year's Facebook goal ($13,500) reflects a quarter of that total, accounting for matching funds and our first year of giving to Habitat. Thank you for joining us in creating a lasting tribute to Kendall’s generous spirit.

About the Project

Asheville’s affordable housing crisis has worsened in the wake of Hurricane Helene. In response, we’re teaming up with Habitat to provide more than just shelter—we’re helping build security, community, and opportunity. We’ve requested that the home go to a family with children, and it will be part of Phase 2 of New Heights, a multigenerational neighborhood adding 60 new homes.

Get Involved

During the building process, we’ll host volunteer days for friends and family to help build the home alongside the future homeowners and other community members. It’s a hands-on way to come together in support of a cause Kendall would have loved. Construction is set to begin May 2026 and volunteer days start June 2026. Visit AshevilleHabitat.org for more info.

How to Donate:

1. Directly to the Facebook fundraiser

2. Venmo: @Kaitlin-Wernet

3. Directly to CFWNC://cfwnc.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=2705

✨ Double your impact: All donations in June will be matched!

Past Birthday Fundraisers

2018: $10,670 to Manna Food Bank Packs for Kids program

2019: $10,106 to Calvary Episcopal Church Food Pantry (new building)

2020: $12,192 to Western Carolina Rescue Mission

2021: $20,681 to ABCCM’s Transformation Village

2022: $11,222 to Calvary Episcopal Church Food Pantry

2023: $20, 328 to Manna Food Bank Packs for Kids program

2024: $17,000 to Homeward Bound

Other Grants

$1,000 to Bike & Build

$1,000 to Clemson University Foundation

$500 to Cane Creek Middle School

$500 to T.C. Roberson High School

Thank You

Overall the Kendall Alexander Wernet has given $105, 199 in grants to our local community since 2018—and with your help, we’re just getting started! Thank you so much for carrying on Kendall’s legacy in such a meaningful way.

Update + Birthday Fundraiser 2023

Happy June, friends! We can hardly believe it’s time for the 6th annual birthday fundraiser!

Each and every year, we are overwhelmed and encouraged by the kindness of our community in memory of Kendall. It’s clear his legacy lives on, and we think he’d be so delighted to see the ways we’ve rallied together to do good in the world. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your support!

Since it’s the sixth time we’ve done this, we thought it would be a good opportunity to share the impact the Kendall Wernet Community Foundation birthday fundraiser has made over the past few years:

2018: $10,670 to Manna Food Bank Packs for Kids program

2019: $10,106 to Calvary Episcopal Church Food Pantry (new building)

2020: $12,192 to Western Carolina Rescue Mission

2021: $20,681 to ABCCM’s Transformation Village

2022: $11,222 to Calvary Episcopal Church Food Pantry

That’s $64,871 raised from all of our birthday fundraisers combined!

This year’s recipient is the Manna Food Bank Packs for Kids program. Now through June 30, all donations to the Kendall Wernet Community Foundation will go toward making sure all kids in WNC have enough to eat at home.

Double Your Impact: And (!) because we truly believe in the power of good turns, every donation made during this time period will be MATCHED by the Kendall Wernet Community Foundation. (Now that's what we like to call a party!)

You can donate three ways:

1. Directly on the Community Foundation website

2. Through the Facebook fundraiser

3. Through Venmo @Kaitlin-Wernet

About Manna Packs for Kids: Every Friday and during the summer, 1 in 4 children in Western North Carolina will go home to not enough food to last their family through the weekend. But, thanks to Manna Food Bank and their Packs for Kids program, every Friday, a bag of nutrient-dense food is discreetly slipped into thousands of WNC students’ backpacks. While the menu changes week-to-week, these families can always expect high-nutrient, shelf stable food, the makings for a family meal, breakfast and snack items, and fresh fruit when available.

Again, thank you all for showing up for us, Kendall, and our community.

Do a good turn daily,

The Wernets

Birthday Fundraiser 2021

Hi friends!

It’s that time of year again! Last year, with your help, we were able to send over $12,000 to the Western Carolina Rescue Mission, and we're excited to bring everyone together again in 2021.

In the past, this tradition has come together through hundreds of $5 and $10 donations, so we truly believe in the collective power of small gifts.

Now through June 30, all donations contributed to the Kendall Wernet community foundation fund will go to ABCCM's Transformation Village for homeless women and children. ABCCM is an organization Kendall was passionate about, as he completed his Eagle Scout project at the ABCCM Veterans' Restoration Quarters.

And (!) because we truly believe in the power of good turns, every donation made during this time period will be MATCHED by the Kendall Wernet Community Foundation. (Now that's what we like to call a party!)

You can donate three ways:

1. Right here on the website

2. Via the Facebook fundraiser

3. Through Venmo @Kaitlin-Wernet

Thank you all again for your support. We’re so grateful to continue Kendall’s legacy and celebrate his life together.

Love,

The Wernets

Birthday Fundraiser 2020

Hi, friends!

Just wanted to update you all on our annual birthday fundraiser for this year. Through the end of June, all donations will be matched not only by the Kendall Wernet Community Foundation, but ALSO the Western North Carolina Rescue Mission. It’s an incredible cause, and we’re humbled and grateful for the opportunity to continue Kendall’s legacy in this way.

For more information, visit the Facebook fundraiser. Donations are also accepted via Venmo @Kaitlin-Wernet.

Thank you all so much for your continued generosity.

Love,

The Wernets

Update: Calvary Center of Hope Expansion

Friends! What wonderful news we have to share about your donations from our 2019 celebration for Kendall’s birthday: The Calvary Center of Hope and Food Pantry expansion officially opened in February 2020.

The Kendall Wernet Community Foundation donated $10,106 to the Calvary Center of Hope and Food Pantry in 2019, all thanks to you! Here are some of our personal pictures of the dedication:

We’re grateful for this center and the good work they will continue to do in our community!

Looking forward to updating you again soon,

Bob, Helen, and Kaitlin

Happy Birthday, Kendall!

You’re invited to help us celebrate and remember Kendall Wernet by “doing a good turn TODAY.”

When: Today, June 7, through June 30, 2019
What: A Facebook Fundraiser for Calvary Episcopal Food Pantry
How: Donate to Our Facebook Campaign Here

Dear friends and family,

It’s June 7 again—a day that is filled with celebration, longing, and sadness all at once. We can’t believe it’s the fourth time we’ve celebrated today without our boy, and yet, we still have a hard time imagining any more years without him.

Thanks to your kindness and generosity, we raised over $10,000 for MANNA Food Bank’s school packs program last year, an amount we never even knew to hope for! Our original goal was $500, and we continued to increase it during the day.

Additionally, the fundraiser allowed us to connect with Kendall’s loved ones and create a new tradition on a day that has traditionally been hard for us to remember. We love continuing to “do a good turn daily” in his memory. Here’s what we’re up to this year:

Why, from Calvary Episcopal Food Pantry: “Calvary Episcopal Church Food Pantry, Inc. is designated as a “very large” food pantry, as scored by our partner, MANNA Food Bank, and we are an authorized distributor of federal SAM and Henderson County TEFAP food. Our goal is to provide at least half a week’s provisions per weekly visit.  We aim to provide 45-50% of a family’s needs in fruits, vegetables, and grains, 25% of its milk, and 90% of its protein. From January 2012 through 2018 the Pantry has purchased or collected and then has distributed nearly $2 million in food and household necessities. 

We are busy and crowded on Saturdays, when the Pantry is open to clients.  However, during the week, we are also busy, receiving and stocking food. This involves heavy cart and pallet jack traffic as well as many hours of volunteer time to shift, repackage and stack goods on the shelves.

These activities contribute to the wear and tear on the building and space restrictions prevent us from obtaining additional food supplies we might otherwise have donated to the Pantry. We currently lack space in the Calvary Parish Hall to adequately serve the growing number and needs of our clients.

To better serve our clients, the Food Pantry committee made a decision to raise money for a separate building on Calvary Church’s campus in order to enhance our ability to provide additional nutritious food to our clients. The cost for the new building is estimated at $500,000.

We are applying for grants that will help cover the construction costs as well as the cost of equipping the building and donations are welcome.” For more on their mission, visit https://www.calvaryfletcher.org/about-our-pantry

Details: All donations given to the Kendall Wernet community foundation fund between June 7 and June 30 will go toward a new building for Calvary’s Food Pantry. In addition, all donations made during this time period will be MATCHED by the Kendall Wernet Community Foundation! 

While we love any and all donations, we’re especially hoping for lots of small contributions. If every family member or friend of Kendall’s decided to give $5 or $10 as a birthday gift, we’d make it to our goal of $2,500 in no time!

Follow this link to make sure your donation ends up in the right place.

If you’d rather not donate through Facebook, you can donate by following these directions or contributing via venmo @Kaitlin-Wernet. And treat yourself to a vanilla cupcake today — Kendall’s favorite!

Thanks for celebrating with us and doing a good turn today!

Update!

Hi friends!

We’re so excited to finally pop in with a long-awaited update on the Kendall Wernet Legacy Fund at the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina!  Fancy names aside, this is simply an opportunity for us to live out the Boy Scout slogan, “Do a Good Turn Daily,” and generously support people in our community. Because Kendall’s passions spanned many organizations and subjects, our vision in creating the community foundation fund was to contribute to a variety of causes instead of confine his legacy to a single one.

AND! We’re thrilled to say that, because of your help, we’ve been busy doing just that! Since its creation in summer 2015, the Kendall Wernet Legacy Fund has gone toward people and passions we’re proud to support, and we’re just getting started. Our goal is to create a long-term legacy of generosity in Western North Carolina and beyond. Here are the causes we’ve chosen to contribute to so far, and we have some more on the way!:

4/13/2016: Donation to Bike and Build, Inc. for the fundraising efforts of Cole Rains. One of Kendall’s close friends from high school, Cole biked from Maine to Santa Barbara in 2016 with Bike and Build, an advocacy and service group that travels the USA teaching about affordable housing and helping on affordable housing building sites. Because Cole was a top fundraiser, he was able to contribute an additional $1,000 to an individual recipient of the Asheville Area Habitat Home Preservation Program. We know Kendall would be so proud of Cole!

5/23/2016: Donation to TC Roberson High School and Cane Creek Middle School in their pursuits of excellence in school music education. These band programs, beloved by the Wernet family, chose to use earlier memorial contributions to commission a symphonic piece in memory of Kendall. Renowned composer Paul Murtha was chosen to write “To Seek the Glorious,” and it premiered in 2016.

Watch TC Roberson and Cane Creek bands perform “To Seek the Glorious” here.
Notice how the song ends with a trumpet — Kendall’s instrument — playing off stage.

10/3/2017: Donation to Clemson University Foundation for the Samuel J. Cadden Chapel Fund, given in memory of Kendall Wernet toward building the first-ever chapel on the Clemson campus.

WHAT’S NEXT: We’re celebrating Kendall’s birthday, June 7, with a Facebook pop-up fundraiser for Manna Food Bank. All donations given between June 7 and June 30, 2018, will go toward Manna Packs For Kids, a program that specifically addresses the fact that one in four children in WNC homes are living in homes without enough food to last through the weekend. Every Friday, Manna discreetly slips high-nutrient, shelf stable food into children’s backpacks to prevent hunger. Find out more about the program here. In addition, every donation given during June 7-30 will be matched! If every friend or family member of Kendall's gives $5 or $10, we'll be making a true community impact. Stay tuned for the official donation link on Facebook! 

If you’re aware of a specific local need or cause needing support, email Kaitlin Wernet for details on applying to become a Kendall Wernet Legacy Fund beneficiary.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your generosity and passion for our community. We’re grateful for the ways you’ve rallied behind remembering Kendall and know he’s looking down on us smiling about the ways his legacy continues.

Love,
Bob, Helen, and Kaitlin Wernet