It started with heart palpitations and sporadic fainting spells. Now the 25-year-old father of two, Stewart Stout, passes out 20 to 40 times a day for minutes on end. Stout suffers from multiple heart conditions that cause abnormal heart rhythms putting him at risk of heart failure, strokes, and blood clots. He has undergone countless treatments and five open heart surgeries to find and fix the defect but nothing has cured him. Doctor’s are baffled, says family friend and neighbor Jessica Taufer.

“The doctors told him the next thing he needs to do is go to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota because that’s where the heart specialists are,” she says. “That is his only chance of getting fixed at this point.”

The $10,000 cost of travel and treatment from the center is a financial burden on the family as Stout has been unable to work for the past year. Taufer and other neighbors and friends have organized a dinner and auction to raise the funds needed to get Stout well. They have been thrilled with the local support as their original spaghetti dinner was upgraded to a catered meal of pasta and salad from Firehouse Pizzeria, bread from Old Grist Mill and desserts from Casper’s Malt Shoppe.

“It’s been really great to work with everybody,” she says. “We’ve had a ton of restaurants giving gift cards we had like 25 things from the movie theaters and just a lot of gifts. We have things from Curves and Sugar ‘n Spice and candles.”

The event will have a big impact not only for Stout, but also for his family who have recently suffered from their own medical problems. His wife, Cierra, is to undergo stomach surgery and his one year old son needs surgery for a hernia. The family's newest member was born eight weeks premature and has been in and out of the hospital since. “This could really change their lives if he could get his heart fixed and go back to work,” Taufer says.

The dinner and auction will be held Saturday, July 31 at the Smithfield North Stake Center 155 west 400 north. Everyone is invited to come help the family. For more information about the fundraiser and the family's situation, visit sendstewarttomayoclinic.blogspot.com.