How 2 Kids' Deaths Enriched Other Kids' Lives

The Jody Raffoul Band performed at the recent Autumn Harvest fundraiser Christie Siegel, pictured, organized to benefit the Jordan and Ashley Siegel Scholarship Fund, which helps children in poverty experience some of the same skill-building activities as their peers. (Photo submitted)

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Royal Oak Youth Assistance social worker Nancy Minckler felt a tug at her emotions as donations were tallied after last weekend’s fundraiser for the Jordan and Ashley Siegel Scholarship Fund.

The fundraiser, which brought in $15,000 this year, has helped dozens of Royal Oak youth experience activities that would be financial beyond their grasp if – and this is the devil of it – two kids hadn’t died.

They’ve gone to camps, been able to participate in youth football and cheerleading activities, and taken part in other activities aimed at giving kids healthy alternatives to substance abuse and other unhealthy activities.

“To me, it’s a conundrum that out of this catastrophe is coming so much good,” said Minckler, who works with Christie Siegel, the kids’ mom, to organize the fundraisers and divvy out the proceeds to activities that do the most good.

“We spend equal time laughing and crying when we speak,” Minckler said. “The grief is there, but the good she is doing is right there, too.”

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The fundraiser is a coping mechanism for the siblings’ mother, whose greatest joy was being their mother. The divorced mother not only lost her only children – Jordan, 14, and Ashley, 11 – in a horrific rollover accident June 22, 2012 accident on U.S. 23 in Pittsfield Township, she lost some of her self-worth.

“How do you stop being a mother?” she said, her voice quavered as she spoke, as if speaking their names is like pulling a lever hat opens a floodgate on a pool of dammed up tears.

“I will die with this pain,” she said, giving in to the tears. “It becomes part of you.”

‘A Mom Without Children’

In the weeks after the children’s death, Siegel flailed in an unfamiliar world, lost and without direction.

“I was fired from a job (mother of two) that I loved and told I’m never going to work there again,” she told Patch in 2013. “As the months passed, I became lost trying to find a new way, searching for a new beginning – a beginning of a life as a mom without my children.”

Friends, family and other mourners made remembered the siblings with contributions to Royal Oak Youth Soccer Association and the Royal Oak Youth Assistance, planting the first seeds of what would become the Jordan and Ashley Siegel Scholarship Fund.

“We don’t want the kids we help or assist to miss out on lifetime memories and bonding on class trips just because their families have fallen on hard times.”

Pub crawls in 2012 and 2013 raised $10,000 and $5,600, respectively. The money raised this at this year’s Autumn Harvest nearly doubled the amount of money community members have given to not only support Siegel and remember her children, but also help some local youths feel less marginalized because of economic barriers.

“My kids were fortunate that their dad and I had good jobs,” Siegel said. “Our kids were able to go to sixth-grade camp, on the (Washington) DC trip when they were eighth graders and do all of those things.

“We don’t want the kids we help or assist to miss out on lifetime memories and bonding on class trips just because their families have fallen on hard times,” she said. “They deserve the same experiences – the sense of belonging in getting a yearbook, learning what being on a team means and how it builds character, just a lifetime of memories that my kids got to have.”

Self-Esteem Comes with Achievement, Not Praise

Royal Oak Youth Assistance is a 501(c)3 organization funded by the Royal Oak School District, the city of Royal Oak and the Oakland County Circuit Court Family Division.

“The tri-sponsorship works beautifully,” Minckler said. “No one organization could provide the range of services we provide. … We don’t provide the lessons, we write the check for them.”

Programs focus on primary and secondary prevention, and run the gamut from camp scholarships to skillbuilding grants that help low-income youths enroll in any organized activity of their choosing, whether it’s gymnastics, sport leagues, prom or even Weight Watchers.

“It speaks to the bigness of her heart and how she has been able to expand her heart to include other people’s children after such an immense loss.”

“Families in poverty have trouble giving their kids the kinds of experiences as middle-class families,” Minckler said. “What we know about self-esteem is that it’s not built by telling kids they’re great; its the nuts-and-bolts reaction to learning a new skills.”

The scholarship charity is nimble enough to respond to more tangible needs faced by families. For example, when flash flooding caused basement sewer backups all across town last month, many of the families served by Royal Oak Youth Assistance were hit hard. Siegel and Minckler discussed the situation and decided to use some of the money to buy $50 Meijer gift cards for families needing to replace coats and other items stored in basements.

“I have a lot of admiration for Christie and how she has opened her heart to other people’s children, to children who weren’t fortunate,” Minckler said.

“She’s remarkable in her ability to continue to nurture, even though her biological children are gone,” she continued. “It speaks to the bigness of her heart and how she has been able to expand her heart to include other people’s children after such an immense loss.”

Organizing fundraisers to help other people’s kids doesn’t replace her own, “but it helps,” Siegel said. “After losing the kids, and losing that fulfillment of being a parent, I needed something that would help fill that void.”