For LaDarius Young’s four little children, this past holiday season will always be the Christmas they lost their daddy. <img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/53711110_1609867191122632_r.jpeg" alt="53711110_1609867191122632_r.jpeg" width="100%" media_type="3" />   On Christmas Eve of 2020, we too lost our beloved friend and colleague LaDarius to COVID-19. He was just 37 years old. LaDarius had spent several weeks fighting the disease in the intensive care unit at St. Vincent’s East in Birmingham, Alabama. He had seemed to be getting better, needing a little less oxygen day by day. But then the virus finally overcame him — on the day before he had hoped to wish his children a merry Christmas via FaceTime. It would have been their first time to see their daddy, even via video, since he had gone into the hospital all those weeks before. <img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/53711110_1609867574536901_r.jpeg" alt="53711110_1609867574536901_r.jpeg" width="100%" media_type="3" /> From a young age, LaDarius knew that whatever he wanted out of life, he would have to work for it. And he did. He taught himself to be a software developer — and an outstanding one. While working in the IT department for AT&amp;T, he took one day off every week for months to moonlight as an intern at the Birmingham software consulting company VBI, learning programming languages and frameworks. He quickly became such a skilled and valued team member that VBI hired him full-time. He worked there from 2016 until 2020. In June 2020, he moved to Cloverly, an environmental tech company that helps businesses and individuals neutralize their carbon impact. <img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/53711110_1609868755826171_r.jpeg" width="100%" media_type="3" alt="53711110_1609868755826171_r.jpeg" /> Always a smile He was the kind of colleague who, on first meeting, would set aside what he was doing and spend a few minutes getting to know you — not just what you did, but who you were as a person. He had the calm, relaxed, smiling vibe of someone who had everything under control. Usually, he did. Whenever you asked him to do something, he took care of it quickly and cheerfully. If you should have been able to figure it out for yourself, he was always kind enough not to point that out. <img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/53711110_1609867665608958_r.jpeg" alt="53711110_1609867665608958_r.jpeg" width="100%" media_type="3" /> He loved making music and playing video games, and most of all loved spending time with his family. He and his wife, Taylor R. Young, have four children: Zaine, Titus, Calliope, and Lennox. Through the months of the coronavirus pandemic, he worked from home most of the time. During daily video meetings, the kids could often be heard, and sometimes seen — making their daddy (and everybody else on the call) smile whenever they wandered into camera range. The sound of his kids laughing and playing never seemed to distract him. In fact, it appeared to soothe him, like beautiful background music. <img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/53711110_1609867778629804_r.jpeg" alt="53711110_1609867778629804_r.jpeg" width="100%" media_type="3" /> A quiet house Things are a lot quieter at home these days. Taylor is sorting through a mountain of medical bills. She and the children are facing a future without the family’s main source of income. We — LaDarius’s friends and colleagues — are trying to help. We’re raising money, and contributing ourselves, to support Taylor and the kids through this difficult and uncertain time. Whatever we raise will go to medical expenses related to LaDarius’s treatment. It will also help the family get on their feet as they figure out how to go on without their husband, their father, the center of their lives. <img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/53711110_1609867850890298_r.jpeg" alt="53711110_1609867850890298_r.jpeg" width="100%" media_type="3" /> When we look at the pictures of LaDarius and his family, we can almost physically feel the love and the joy. We remember feeling the same way in his presence. We can’t bring that back. We can’t fill the hole in his wife’s and children’s hearts, and in ours. We can just try to keep bills paid and food on the table and a roof overhead while those he loved try to find a new direction without the man they depended on and adored. <img src="https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/53711110_1609867936793536_r.jpeg" alt="53711110_1609867936793536_r.jpeg" width="100%" media_type="3" /> If you can help Taylor and the kids, we would deeply appreciate it. They would too. Thank you.

Tim & Patti Krehbiel

Lawrence Menter

Anonymous

Ian Purvis

Terry Ray

Kenneth Pierce

Bill Smith

Robert Maginn

Bryan Price

Pamela Millburg

Amelia Ray

Stephen Read Stradley

C.J. Duke

ZEPH LEGGETT

Patrick J. Murphy

Dad of 4 Lost to COVID-19 Xmas Eve. Help His Kids.

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