09/29/2022
Last night, we were able to present the first gift from the Foundation to a family that experienced the loss of a parent in order to help their kids maintain some normalcy during this difficult time through their love of sports. This first family was the Ruppe family. Paul Ruppe passed away on May 30, 2022 after a difficult battle with melanoma. Anne is left to care for their 2 children, Abby 16 and Benny 14. While efforts have been made to help Anne with the care, therapy, and support of Benny, who is severely autistic, we saw an opportunity to help Abby. Abby is a soccer player for the Galaxy soccer club, which is one of the top soccer clubs in Naperville, and scored the team’s only goal in their last game. For the any of you that have kids in club sports, you know the major expense and sacrifice that these have become for families. With the gift last night, the Foundation was able to cover the full amount of her soccer club fees for the entire year!
Being able to give this first gift to the Ruppe family last night was truly amazing and humbling. Still have chills thinking about it. They were the perfect family to be the first recipient from the Foundation. Not only are they a Brookdale family, but Abby plays soccer including the same position as Angie, center midfielder! In addition, I remember first time meeting Anne when she was a volunteer official for the Bucs swim team when we first joined and probably DQed the kids a couple of times in that first year 😊 We are genuinely looking forward to building more of a relationship with the Ruppe family as we support each other in more ways as we keep moving forward.
Thank you to everyone that has donated and made such incredible efforts to this mission and cause. The momentum is remarkable as other organizations are looking to be partners with us and help with fundraising. We also, unfortunately, have two other families in our circle that have experienced the loss of a father with young sports-active children over the last month, and we are looking for ways that we can help. Definitely feel Angie looking down on us smiling as we continue forward with a mission and purpose that we both felt so passionately about: helping kids participate in youth sports and bringing good into this world in the face of difficult circumstances.
For more information on the journey of the Ruppe family, you can visit here: https://www.anchoredforlife.org/home.
Please share and like the Foundation’s page as more updates and information will be coming. If you are interested in donating, we have Zelle ([email protected]) and Venmo () set up. We are also working on other ways through the page to make this process even easier.
