Alexander James Verhoeven Memorial Scholarship

The Alexander James Verhoeven Memorial Scholarship Fund is dedicated to our son, brother, boyfriend, and friend, who passed away on August 10, 2023. Alexander was a four year member of the Redlands High School Football and Track and Field teams and graduated in 2014. He was a loyal friend who would have deep conversations, encouraging people to consider different perspectives. Alexander enjoyed riding his Harley while taking “the road less traveled”. He also liked exploring, learning how to play guitar and jamming with his friends.

Our goal is to provide a $1,000 annual scholarship to honor the paths that Alexander pursued. We would like to help Redlands High School students planning to attend a trade school to learn a job skill, or to help fund a person’s pursuit of studying music in college. Thank you for your donation to help us keep the memory of Alex alive through your generous gift to his scholarship fund.

More on Alexander:

Our charismatic, talented, amazing, fun-loving, and faithful son, brother, boyfriend, grandson, nephew, cousin, and friend – Alexander, 27 years old, died on August 10, 2023.

Alexander James Verhoeven was born on April 12, 1996, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the first child of James and Karen (Van Veldhuizen) Verhoeven. He arrived with his volume on full and his red hair grabbing all the attention – and this changed little throughout his life! Within a few months Alexander and his parents packed their things and moved back to California where Alexander, in 1997, helped welcome Benjamin to their family. The brothers were quite the pair those first several years. They were each other’s best friends and did everything together. The family was completed in 2001 with the birth of Abigail; and many adventures became an amazing blessing as we traveled, worshipped, played and lived life as a family.

Alexander started his education at First Lutheran Preschool where he began some of his life-long friendships. He continued to Redlands Christian School from Kindergarten through his 8th grade graduation. At RCS Alexander’s faith continued to grow through retreats, a Hawk Nelson concert, being a Barnabas leader and especially his time spent at Camp Dunamis. The seeds that had been sown into his life from his grandparents, his parents, his church, and now his school were helping Alexander to become the thinker, philosopher, theologian, and listener that we saw in him. It was also at RCS that Alexander was introduced to tackle football, this became a part of his life for the next several years. He proudly joined the RHS Long Blue Line playing on the offensive and defensive lines. Most importantly he made, grew, and nurtured many impactful friendships. The family that football created for him became a way of life for him. Alexander would display fierce loyalty to his friends; it didn’t mean that they spent every moment together – it meant that when needed he was there for them, and they for him. This continued after his graduation from Redlands High School in 2014.

Alexander attended both Dordt University and Oak Valley College while discovering what life had in store for him. Throughout that time Alexander continued to make, grow, and further develop those core friendships. He also began to discover his love of music, and he definitely grew an eclectic taste; music was morphing into a desire to play and create. Beginning with learning the bass guitar, Alexander taught himself to play guitar and he loved strumming on the front porch, in the backyard, and especially jamming with friends. Another journey for him was working at our local Harley Davidson dealership where he quickly developed a love of motorcycles. Working on, talking about, and most importantly, riding motorcycles became ubiquitous for Alexander. Once he met Reina Andreatta, a relationship slowly began to develop. Their desire to develop that relationship led to Alexander moving to Folsom, California in November 2022. He began working for DoorMart as a garage door technician and discovered a job that he grew to love. It combined so many of the loves and skills that he had been blessed with – driving, working with his hands, solving problems, and interacting with people. Through his hard work and dedication, he was able to move from warehouse worker, to trainee, to having his own truck and being an installer. Along this journey, again, Alexander developed close friendships with his co-workers.

Although his journey had many turns, God was always a foundation of Alexander’s life; “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). His faith and philosophy were crucial to him. Alexander was a talker, and a listener – he listened not to respond, but to hear what the other person was saying. He loved to debate and discuss matters; everything was fair game! A phone call from Alexander was usually not a short experience – if we are going to talk, we are going to discuss weighty topics and issues – we are going to get to know each other’s positions and reasons. Even more in depth than the phone calls, were the legendary “Pavilion visits”. The Verhoeven backyard pavilion would be a gathering spot for all times of the day, and especially at night. As one friend explained – 10pm could become 4am faster than you could imagine. This was also the location of many a jam-session. We will miss these conversations, this friendship, this loyalty, this worship and we greatly anticipate the day where we can be reunited with our Big Red.

Alexander leaves his parents, James and Karen Verhoeven, his brother and sister-in-law Benjamin and Allison Verhoeven, his sister Abigail, his grandmother, Linda Van Veldhuizen of Oskaloosa, Iowa; and the person he planned a future with, his girlfriend Reina Andreatta. He was preceded in death by his paternal grandparents, Herman and Beverly Verhoeven as well as his maternal grandfather, Dale Van Veldhuizen. We are confident that Herman and Dale are sharing rides with Alex driving the ‘67 Ford truck with Beverly shaking her head at them all!

This scholarship will be offered through the Redlands Community Scholarship Foundation, and any donation will help make an impact. More information about Redlands Community Scholarship Foundation: Composed of corporate members, this organization receives gifts, bequests and donations, disbursing the money in scholarships annually to Redlands Unified School District graduates. Thank you in advance for your contribution to this cause which means so much to Alexander's family and friends.