Pouring Love Onto Holly

With grace and permission, I'm starting a GoFundMe for Holly Schraeger and her family.

Holly is a mother, grandmother, and the most amazing para-pro a school district could hope for. I went through the Kentwood Public School system and it was important for me that my children went through the Kentwood Public School system as well. For nearly 2 decades, the Schraeger family has been part of our lives as classmates, school staff, and personal friends, all the way down to Drew's best little buddy Ella.

The fact is, a private tragedy hit Holly's home 8 years ago and overnight she was a single mother with a mortgage and 4 small children. She persisted, often working multiple jobs to make everything work and has rarely asked/accepted help from anyone. As a para-pro, I watched Holly guide OUR children across the bus lines, love on them when we couldn't, teach them how to read and make our kids each individually feel as if the sun rises and sets upon them.

Over the years, Holly's children grew and grandchildren came. With her oldest two daughters and their children recently moved out, and her youngest daughter trying to self-fund her way through college and save towards a car, Holly, for the most part, is still doing what she's always done: trying to keep everybody afloat, including her minor child Ben, daughter Abbie when home from college, 6-year-old granddaughter Ella and their beloved pets. It's now time for the community to step in; Holly has 2 weeks to leave the home where she lived and raised those babies in. While there are professionals in place to assist with emergent and temporary placement, she needs additional support to expand her options. So now, we're going to come together as a community. Kentwood will show with love, respect and kindness how we take care of one of our own by pouring blessings into the woman who has diligently and wonderfully served our babies.

If any member of the Schraeger family has touched your heart, mind, or spirit over the years, please consider donating. The funds are going directly to Holly so that she can build an immediate nest egg to keep her family safe as they navigate the unknown.

This isn't a handout; it's a thank you. A thank you to the woman we Kentwood parents have walked beside for the last 20 years sharing side-eyes and giggles with. A thank you to the woman who coached the teams, tied the shoes, opened the juice boxes, and stood outside in the car line during Michigan vortex blizzards. A thank you to the woman affectionately known as, "Grandma Holly" to the children of Kentwood. We need to gather as a community to keep her safe, she needs to know she's not alone, because ultimately, and if you know Holly you already know: she will persist. We rise up and take care of ours because right now, she needs rest.

Please share if this moves you. It's time to wrap this family in your arms.