I have wonderful news to report.

Bishop Maginn High School teacher and community activist Kevin Reiss will bury his son Milan on Monday, thanks to you good people.

Thanks to all of you who acted so quickly and generously to raise the money he needed to pay for Milan’s funeral. He died last Saturday.

As of 6:30 p.m., the Gofundme project of Kevin and Mary had reached $6,784, and was still climbing. I went to Albany this morning to meet Kevin, our lives seem bound to one another now.

I brought him a check for $1,000, money people in the Army Of Good send me over the last two days to help pay his funeral expenses. We are very close to the $8,000 he needs for his son’s funeral.

But now, it is scheduled, and Milan can be put to rest. He is so grateful.

Most of the money I brought with me came via Paypal ([email protected]) some from the first checks that began to arrive this morning (Jon Katz, Milan Burial Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.)

Kevin asked me a dozen times to thank everyone who helped this week, he could hardly believe that all of these strangers would reach out to help him in this way.

He said he had no sense that Milan was so ill, “we expected him to come home from the hospital in a few hours, and then the doctor called and asked me to come to the hospital…he was waiting for me when I got there, and he shook my hand, and I knew…” Kevin had to stop.

I’ve been doing this work enough to know when somebody I’m dealing with has never asked for help or needed help before, there is a painful reluctance in independent and accomplished people like Kevin to ask for anything.

But he does need help.

“I know there are so many people out there who need so much,” he said, “I don’t want any more than my share….”

Summers are always hard for teachers, they have to work several jobs to keep paying their bills and neither Kevin or his wife could work much this summer. Milan needed constant care. He was 22. He was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy when he was 12.

Kevin concedes it was a tough summer.

Milan’s trip to the hospital was just another of many, there was no inkling he would never be coming home.

Kevin smiled once or twice and was courteous and open, but I could see he was in shock, crushed. I could also see the relief on his face once he knew – he was told this morning – that the funeral could know could now take place.

I hope the money keeps coming. Kevin and his wife, who is an elementary school teacher, had a rough time and are working hard to pay their rent. They had a lot of medical bills and had to spend most of their time caring for Milan, who died from injuries related to his Muscular Dystrophy.

Next week, Kevin begins work as Bishop Maginn High School’s Dean of Academic Achievement and Discipline. Which means, he says, students who misbehave or are falling behind academically come to him for help and guidance – and discipline.

Kevin is well qualified for this work. He is 44 when he graduated from St. Rose College in Albany, he went to work as a chef. He worked as a chef for 10 years.

“I made a lot more money as a chef than I do as a teacher,” he said smiling. “But I wanted to have more meaning in my life.”

In fact, he says, “I wanted to make helping kids my life.” What I want, said Kevin, is for the kids to say “I don’t want to hang out in the street. I want to play basketball.”

So he started a program for street kids who needed something to do in the warm weather – Spring and Summer. He started a basketball league called the Upstate Wolfpack, it teaches discipline, community, and teamwork.

There is no entry fee and the players compete against other leagues all over upstate New York.

I was impressed with Kevin, I liked him a lot. He is soft-spoken, shy, humble, and perhaps a bit in shock, I could see it in his eyes. He is intelligent.

He loves history especially Greek mythology, and as we talked and got to know each other I pressed him gently (at least I hope so) about his interests and passions.

Using sports to build character was clearly one, another, he said, was music.

He loves rap and hip-hop and he says he’d love to write about how this music culture has brought kids of all colors and backgrounds together as few things have in America.

“They love the same music, they use the same words, they wear the same clothes,” he said. I offered to help him write about this. He said he would love some help starting a blog. You got the right man, he said.

At first, I was uncomfortable asking Kevin to meet me and explaining to him that I needed to take a photograph. It seemed a tough thing to do to a father who lost his son less than a week ago. But I did it many times when I was a reporter. It all came back to me.

And we were surprisingly easy together.

It’s my promise to the Army Of Good, I said, I want them to see where their money goes. He said he understood completely, he was nothing but grateful.

I could sense that Kevin was shy at the beginning of our talk, which took place in the new Music Room of the school where the choir will be rehearsing. He loosened up, we talked, laughed a bit, I was drawn to this quiet and articulate and caring man.

I knew there must be a lot of pressure in his life at the moment. I know he is worried about his rent – $1,800 a month – and that he fears falling behind. He didn’t ask for any more help, but I hope we can keep on giving for a bit until he is whole.

We are very close.

People can contribute to the Gofundme page, or if they prefer to skip the gofundme fees, they can continue to send contributions to me via Paypal, [email protected], or by check, Jon Katz, Milan Burial Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

I asked him again and again if there was anything he needed, and he said no, there was nothing he needed for himself, there was a “but” in his manner and voice, the slightest hesitation, and I sensed it and shifted into my reporter self and pulled it out of him.

He is worried about his surviving son, who is 18 and is having a very difficult week. His Nintendo Play Station 4  broke last week and he is urgently in need of one of his favorite and most comforting activities. He and his brother were close.

This was something Kevin was uncomfortable asking about. I said I’m glad he did, that is an important thing to many young men.

When I got home, I ordered a Nintendo Play Station and had it shipped to Kevin’s apartment, which is close to Bishop Maginn. It’s arriving next Tuesday. I paid for it with my own money, I felt it was something I needed to do.

As he got up to leave, he gave me a long and touching hug, we said goodbye. “Thank you. Sorry if I was grilling you,” I said, “I was a reporter once.”

“I know,” he said, “I could tell.” And as he opened the door and walked out into the street, he turned back to me, and said: “I’d like to talk with you about that blog.”

We will, I said, we will.

Kevin is a good man, a very good man.

And I am so lucky to have work like this to do. And such good people behind me.

Thanks again for your support. We did it.

I never know when I do this if I have finally hit the ceiling, but we have never yet failed to do what we set out to do. That is a pretty amazing record. I sometimes wonder if the reason we work so well together is that we don’t have to meet each other.

We have done good by a lot of people.