Community Corner

Memorial Service Saturday for Novato Woman Killed in Crash

Blues guitarist Eric Gales, 3 members of Eric Gales Band injured in Tuesday crash that killed Kimberly Augusto

A public memorial service for Kimberly Augusto, a 20-year-old longtime Novato resident who was early Tuesday morning, has been scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday.

The event is being billed by family members as “20 Years of Awesome,” and a large crowd is expected at , near the corner of South Novato and Rowland boulevards. Augusto had many friends at , co-workers at the store at and aquaintances at other places around Novato since the crash at 1:05 a.m. Tuesday.

The Augusto family, which resided in Novato until moving to Petaluma last year, has mentioned on Facebook that it appreciates all the kind words that have been posted on Kimberly’s page. “Anyone who loved Kimi and wants to pay their respects is free to show up (at the memorial) and share their love of her life,” wrote her sister, Victoria Augusto.

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Members of the nationally known Eric Gales Band were in the van that struck Augusto’s Nissan Altima on Highway 101 a few miles north of Novato, and they are rallying to help the family. Ashey Patterson, personal manager of Eric Gales Music said, the band wants to collect proceeds from several upcoming shows and send it to a memorial fund in Augusto’s name.

“We’d like to get a campaign going to try to get lights on the highway,” Patterson said in an e-mail to Novato Patch. “We just want to do something, anything.”

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The band members, who suffered cuts and bruises in the wreck, invited the public to donate to the cause by e-mailing ericgalesmusicinc@gmail.com.

Wendy Augusto, Kimberly’s mother, posted a comment Wednesday on a Novato Patch story about her daughter:

“Kimi was an amazing woman who impacted everyone she encountered. She is now and will be greatly missed. I believe we are all here to make an impact and she did in 20 years what many do not accomplish in a lifetime. She lived every day to the fullest and enjoyed being exactly who she was: whether it was doing lunges across a restaurant or movie theater lobby, making entirely inappropriate jokes, working on her cross stitch projects, reading, or just playing her video games.

“She was not just Kimi, she was "Kimi Mother F-ing Augusto" (said with flair and big gestures). Love you babe.”


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