Kim was our STAR - Let's help her child Alex SOAR!

Kim Cardin passed away this June from cancer at the tender age of 39.   We are her friends, co-workers and family raising money to help her daughter, Alex, fulfill her dreams of completing college and reaching  for the stars.  We ask that you consider making a donation toward our $5,000 goal to help Alex and Ray, Kim's loving husband, best navigate a complex pathway forward following Kim's illness.  Alex was able to let her mom know that her goal to graduate college would be met, and we want to support Kim's last wishes as a mother that her daughter achieve her dreams.  As an employee of North Carolina Theatre, as a member of the Penny Road Church in Raleigh, and as a person caring for the folks she met along the way - Kim Cardin always took notice of the dreams of others, and helped set us along our paths.  It is our great wish to return that favor.  College starts in August - let's get this done for Alex and Ray by August 16th!  We can do it!!


Kim,  a sparkling, compassionate, funny, and loving  person, passed away from cancer on June 16. She was incredibly special, and we want to share with all of you that she left important lessons on our hearts. As our hearts break for the loss of Kim in our everyday lives, these lessons fall in, and forever become a part of us. 

Kim's great wish was to enable success for her fantastic daughter Alex.  Like her mom, Alex has developed a love of the arts and of people, and as she has entered young adulthood has set her sights on caring for others.  Even in the face of this terrible pandemic, Alex plans to attend college, and is on a journey of discovery toward the best path that suits the skills, values, and courage that her mother, Kim, taught her - qualities that her father, Ray, continues to nurture and support as Alex steps forward into the world. Let's help Alex take her place in  making this world better! 

Kim Cardin, fiercely loved by her devoted daughter and soulmate husband, was known by friends and family as incredibly unique.   Her fantastic moxy, wit, empathy, nurturing spirit, and loyalty blended somehow magically with her tender self-expression, and openness about learning, longing, hurt, and hope.

Kim was passionate!  She dove into the moral puzzles presented by one of her passions - the theatre - and examined these in thoughtful notes to her co-workers at NC Theatre. Kim exalted in music, dance and songs, the gut-wrenching pain of the drama, the jubilant fun of the comedy. Whether in tears from being swept up in a powerful moment on the stage, or from laughing along with the enormous audience she proudly helped invite in….Kim’s eyes always sparkled. Like the great costumes and lights Kim loved to admire on our performers, that customary dab of blue eye shadow sitting atop Kim’s mischievous eyes merely provided a clue to the wonderful character living within.

Kim was overflowing with faith.  She was a beloved member of her Penny Road Church community in Raleigh, NC - always available to handle and see through details that might have been missed by others.  Her pastor has shared that her sense of humor and humanity mixed with absolute faith made her deeply cherished among her church community.  Kim took Christian lessons to heart, and through her struggles and successes, she taught these to others.  As she so beautifully wrote just this February, “We need to keep learning to love one another and grow together!”  Kim valued all people and was never to be labeled or pinned down to any one culture or creed...except that of love.  


Through Kim, God reminds us to be true to ourselves, to love others and our community, to be truthful and open, and to reach for the stars. In this way, she stays with us, in the place she loved to occupy the most: our hearts.

On behalf of our star Kim Cardin, and all she has done for so many, let's build a great gift for Kim's family: the funds that Kim's daughter Alex and husband Ray will need to help propel Alex to reach for her dreams!