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<\/a>In his professional life, Jim was an engineer, architect, builder, and restaurateur, specifically known for his Round Table Pizza franchises. At the peak of the chain\u2019s popularity, Jim and wife Joanne maintained more than a dozen local Round Table locations, including one on Mission Gorge Road in Grantville, and another at 7119 Navajo Road in San Carlos. In its heyday, that San Carlos location was a gathering point for numerous community organizations, including Little League teams, and practically every sports team or youth group at Patrick Henry High School.<\/p>\n
He was particularly skilled as a businessman, remembers Chandler. \u201cHe employed people, he made them money, he built and created things, he was a master of numerous professions, and was the most savvy,\u00a0street-smart person I have ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacDonald was also a loving husband and father who instilled good business sense and the values of community service into his sons, Scott and Craig. Craig, his younger son, served as Key Club President at Patrick Henry in 1979-80, and served later that summer as Convention Chair when the 37th Annual Key Club International Convention came to San Diego. Jim\u2019s older son, Scott, was an avid sports fan, and the coach for a girls\u2019 softball team near his home in La Mesa.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the MacDonald family faced a seemingly unbearable loss when Scott was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Scott was tragically young, only 24 years old, when he succumbed to the illness on July 5, 1983.<\/p>\n
In loving memory of their son, Jim and Joanne would go on to create the Scott MacDonald Memorial Fund \u2014 a nonprofit organization, founded to help build and maintain youth sports facilities across East County. The annual G.A.G Kiwanis Anchovy Open golf tournament was launched as a fundraiser for the memorial fund (named for the anchovies found in Jim\u2019s pizza parlors). With Kiwanis as a partner and sponsor for the event, the Anchovy Open was a staple for two decades at the Sun Valley Golf Course in La Mesa.<\/p>\n
In 1999, Craig MacDonald, Jim\u2019s younger son, established Hooley\u2019s Irish Pub in Rancho San Diego. The popular music-and-brew event, \u201cHooleyfest,\u201d followed on St. Patrick\u2019s Day, again with G.A.G. Kiwanis providing numerous volunteers, and acting as a title sponsor. Proceeds from Hooleyfest also went to the Scott MacDonald Memorial Fund.<\/p>\n
With Jim\u2019s encouragement, eight years of Hooleyfest fundraisers, and the opening of a second Hooley\u2019s location in Grossmont Center, the Scott MacDonald Memorial Fund was able to raise over $100,000, enough to build a ballpark in his honor. Craig\u2019s original Hooley\u2019s location in Rancho San Diego stands immediately next door to the McGrath Family YMCA and the J. Scott MacDonald Memorial Ballfield which still bears his late brother\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
Another two decades after Scott\u2019s passing, Jim would courageously stare down the other major tragedy of his life as his beloved wife, Joanne, was diagnosed with scleroderma. Jim and Joanne would dedicate much time and energy during the last years of her life to support the Scleroderma Foundation of Southern California, and its various fundraising events, in the hope that someday a cure for the deadly disease will be found. After more than 56 years of marriage, Joanne preceded Jim in passing on Jan. 26, 2015.<\/p>\n
By then, Jim was battling health issues of his own, as dementia would eventually rob him of all he had left.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe suffered a host of life\u2019s obstacles that many of us would have been crushed under, but not Jim,\u201d Chandler recalled. \u201cHe always bounced back somehow. The word \u2018resilient\u2019 was built around him. But, through this horrible condition known as\u00a0dementia, we\u00a0witnessed this invasive, life-destroying condition that\u00a0just makes me (and Craig) angry. It is completely senseless to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Affectionately known to Kiwanians as \u201cBig Dummy\u201d (making his pal Chandler, accordingly, \u201cLittle Dummy\u201d), MacDonald was known as one of the hardest workers in the club. In 1985, when the G.A.G Kiwanis seemed ready to outgrow its meeting space, Jim helped oversee the massive task of expanding the Gardens Room at the Allied Gardens Recreation Center.<\/p>\n
Later in life, Jim took a personal interest in New Entra Casa, an inner-city shelter for female ex-convicts who are out of prison and trying to reintegrate into society as law-abiding citizens. The shelter had fallen into disrepair. With the help of Chandler, the two spearheaded several restoration efforts to help breathe new life into the shelter. Jim and John, with additional Kiwanis support, helped renovate and restore the New Entra Casa house in North Park so that those women could continue to live in a safe and respectable environment.<\/p>\n
As a member of G.A.G. Kiwanis, Jim was exemplary. He was a two-time recipient of the Kiwanian of the Year Award \u2013 once in 1976-77, then again in 1984-85. He was extremely motivated to improve his community, with an unmatched work ethic, and when trying to rouse support for his latest cause, he was never timid about speaking up during a Kiwanis meeting. He served as president of the G.A.G. Kiwanis Club in 1981-82.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned so very much from him, starting at a young business age, which allowed me to become more confident in myself,\u201d Chandler wrote. \u201cFor that, I will forever remain indebted to Jim.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014John Robert Crawford is secretary of the Grantville Allied Gardens Kiwanis Club. Reach him at kiwannabee@yahoo.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By John Robert Crawford James Allan \u201cJim\u201d MacDonald Jr., a hard-working entrepreneur and a 40-year member of the Grantville-Allied Gardens Kiwanis Club, passed away on the morning of Friday, July 15, 2016. The news of Jim\u2019s death, dreaded for some time, was reported by his fellow Kiwanian and his best friend, John Chandler. \u201cWe lost […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1053,"featured_media":228912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"Kiwanis remember the life of Jim MacDonald","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1053"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}