Inspired by Grief, Founded in Gratitude

Family creates Koa Fund to help youth to be 'valiant'

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In mid-afternoon on Friday, Nov. 8, 2019, Gabriela (Gabi) SuárezStarfeldt entered the bedroom of her 13-year-old daughter, Koa, and found her dead, apparently by her own hand.

EMTs resuscitated the girl and rushed her to Bronson Hospital, where she lay unconscious for 13 days until Gabi, her husband, Dean, and their family decided to remove her from life support systems. Koa died, for what Gabi says was a second time, on Nov. 21, one week before her 14th birthday.

The girl’s death was shocking, as any suicide is. Naturally, the family struggled with the question “Why did she do it?”

About Koa

Koa, a Hawaiian word, means brave, bold, fierce, valiant, warrior.

Her family describes her as vibrant and outgoing, expressive and artistic. “We have a lot of treasures — Koa’s writings, art, collections, videos, experiences, stories — in our house and homes and businesses," says Koa’s older sister, Zaria.

Among her videos, Gabi says, “are treasures of Koa doing silly things, often with cousins.”

The teen was steps away from being accepted to appear on the television series MasterChef Junior, having participated in five auditions and submitted three 20-minute cooking videos.

Yet, Gabi says, “that kind of creativity doesn’t come without a price — not fitting in, not resonating with expectations, experiencing dissonance living in this world.”

In the months before her death, Koa told her family that she was pansexual, a term that describes people who have the potential to be romantically, emotionally or sexually attracted to people of any gender identity.

For Koa’s 13th birthday, Gabi took her on a special “Girl to Goddess” weekend at Gilchrist Retreat Center, near Three Rivers. Gabi outfitted their hermitage cabin with festive décor, including a tree with a secret “goddess game” of envelopes and gifts that would inspire Koa’s female rite of passage. She also brought a deck of illustrated Soul Cards, and from these Koa discerned and defined the ways of being for her life: “free, play, joy.”

“Most people would not have seen ‘free, play, joy’ in those cards, but she truly saw beauty in everything," says Gabi. "Her outlook encouraged us and many others to find beauty in anything.”

Koa's father adds, “People were very attracted and magnetized to Koa.”

“Or they were repelled,” Gabi interjects.

Dean continues, “Where does this come from? This insight, this depth in a 13-year-old, this creativity to see ‘free, play, joy’ in images that other people might say project fear of the unknown and uncertainty?” Then Dean answers his own question. “She had a different lens on the world than most people.”

"She was a pained personality," Zaria says. "In this world, Koa was often conflicted, which caused her pain, both emotional and physical.”

Koa had vision problems and debilitating vertigo, sometimes needing a cane to walk. This condition led to struggles at school when other students thought she was faking. In response, she created a presentation with photographic slides, diagrams and drawings. She demonstrated the special eyeglasses and sound and mobility devices she used to manage her condition. She informed her classmates about her physical therapy regimen and sought their understanding of what it felt like to be in her body.

In her eighth-grade year, Koa's family began what they refer to as an unschooling approach to her education, giving her educational experiences outside of a traditional classroom. Curious about Latino culture, Koa asked Gabi to take her to Mexico to experience Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). There, in a pool under a waterfall in Yelapa, the mother and daughter swam like dolphins, sang like mermaids and danced. Gabi says, “We were just silly. Koa told me, ‘I’m so happy, Mamá.’”

They arrived in Mexico on Oct. 20, 2019, and returned to Kalamazoo Nov. 5. Three days later, Koa took her life. And her family wondered, “Why did she do it that day?”

Acceptance

“It has become clear to us that it was her time," her mother says now. She says this realization and deep acceptance come not only from intense personal meditation and introspection, but through signs and events of synchronicity the family say they've experienced.

Looking back, Koa's life had nearly ended two other times. “I had to do a Heimlich maneuver on Koa in the spring before she died because she was choking on food," recalls Gabi. "Then we had a carbon monoxide

leak from the gas oven in our kitchen that affected both me and Koa. ”

Other answers came in unexpected ways. For the 2019 Christmas holidays, the family had been planning to travel with Gabi’s sister, AnneMarie Suárez-Davis and her husband and sons to visit Argentina, from which the sisters' parents had emigrated in the early 1960s. After Koa’s death, the grieving family debated making the trip, but Zaria said to her parents, “Even though we don’t want to go now, I think we will regret not going.”

The entourage had made reservations well in advance at the one bed-and-breakfast that met the needs of their large group, but that reservation suddenly fell through. In search of new accommodations, they found a listing

they had not seen before, a bed-and-breakfastin the Mendoza region overlooking the Mendoza River and the Andes.

The proprietor, Walther, had been told of Koa’s death before the family's arrival. He set a place for Koa at the dinner table, a well-received gesture, and he made himself available to the family, sharing meals with them and engaging in conversation about Koa.

One evening Walther told the family, “You need to understand that she didn’t come here for long. Whether it was a car accident a year ago or a year from now, she was going to leave early.”

A retired horticulturist and landscaper, Walther took the family to see a young acacia koa tree growing on his property.

“Koa trees grow only in Hawaii, which means this seed got here by wind or by bird,” Walther told them. "And the only way koa seeds grow is if they are scorched or scarred."

“Look at the synchronicities," says Gabi. "We weren’t supposed to be at that B&B. Koa trees aren’t supposed to be in Argentina. Yet, there we were; there it was. This was a powerful message for us.”

Intentional healing

At the end of their planned trip, Gabi and Dean decided to stay longer in Argentina at Walther's B&B in Mendoza for “a time for intentional healing.”

One day while walking a few miles to a bakery and coffee shop, Dean and Gabi were drawn to pass through an automobile junkyard, a place that they knew Koa would have insisted on venturing into. There they happened upon an abundant number of vintage Plymouth Valiant cars from

the 1960s and early 1970s. Dean saw this as a sign, telling Gabi, “We will be valiant together.”

They determined that their new purpose in life should be “to help youth be valiant.”

“Kids are already valiant. They have that inside their being," Dean says. "We decided that we can help them bring it to the surface and make it part of their way of being and who they are.”

Dean says they saw at this time that life is not quite so black and white, good and bad, alive and dead as they had thought and began exploring these ideas of grief, gratitude and bravery, inspired by words of wisdom from Walther.

“When you return home, people will have a lot to say to you about Koa’s passing and how she passed," Dean says Walther told them. "They will have perspectives on what you should do and how you should be and what it all means. But the only thing you need to do is say, ‘Gracias, Koa. Thank you, Koa,’ for she has given you an opportunity to experience life differently.”

“We knew that we had to be willing to see the pain as well as see what’s beautiful and actually see that the pain is beautiful itself,” Gabi says, pausing to wipe a tear from her cheek. “Yet sometimes I say ‘Gracias, Koa’ through gritted teeth.”

Koa's legacy

"Gracias, Koa" became a mantra for the family and a theme in their current endeavor: the Koa Fund.

The catalyst for the Koa Fund occurred three weeks after Koa’s death and four days before the families' trip to Argentina, at a celebration-of-life ceremony for Koa held at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.

The event, scheduled in the evening, was called a Sunrise Gathering, says Koa's mother, “in defiance of the darkness of Koa’s passing and the long winter to come” and inspired by Koa’s gentle advice to "look at the sky." "Every morning and every evening it does this," Koa said, according to Gabi. "Isn’t that amazing? And most of the world doesn’t even notice."

The gathering was attended by about 500 people who, per the word-of-mouth invitation, wore clothing, costumes and/or jewelry to represent the sunrise.

“While still in her physical body, Koa had made connections. She was part of a big community and made a powerful impact in all her circles,” says her aunt, AnneMarie.

“People came up and told us about encounters they had had with Koa that we didn’t know about," Gabi says, "encounters with their kids that monumentally affected their kid’s life in some way. We heard stories we had not heard before.”

Guests engaged with Koa’s story, playing with her treasures, folding paper cranes and sampling Koa’s recipes. Then, in a room full of people — and grief — Koa’s parents, sister, family and friends shared stories and sang and performed original music. Through tears, they read Koa’s favorite poems as well as some she had written. And they danced.

Amid this emotional blend of sudden change, turbulent emotion and desire to be of service to youth, the family sought to define their new direction, asking, says Dean, “What should we do with this legacy that Koa had established in her short life?”

“We knew we would create some kind of organization that was going to be about how Koa lived in her body," he says, "neither a memorial nor would we focus on the manner by which she left her body."

“We wanted to move in ways that are important and in line with Koa’s core values, like social justice and identity acceptance, and to use creative arts as the vehicle," explains Zaria. "We wanted to build on Koa’s ideals of 'free, play, joy.' And to help youth be valiant.”

Having received donations made in memory of Koa at the Sunrise Gathering, the family had a modest financial base for the organization they envisioned but no idea how to create it.

They turned to the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, and on Dec. 4, 2020, the family officially established the Koa Fund as a donor-advised component fund, a status that enables them to provide grants to organizations of their choice.

“As a fund, we are the hands and feet and heart of Koa moving in this world,” Zaria says. “Our focus is on Koa’s passions and ‘free, play, joy’ ways of being, rooted in her essence as a brave, bold, fierce, valiant warrioress.”

Dedicated to young people

At the time of Koa’s death, Dean had been employed for more than 20 years by Biggs|Gilmore, a local marketing firm that was acquired by VML, a global creative agency. In early 2020, he joined Seven Generations Architecture & Engineering, in Kalamazoo, as a creative director. The firm is part of the Bodwé Group, wholly owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi in Dowagiac. Dean gave up that position in January 2024 to dedicate

himself to expanding the work and impact of the Koa Fund.

The Sunrise Gathering has become an annual event hosted at the Dormouse Theatre in the past two years.

“It’s our biggest annual fundraising event,” Gabi says, “but not what you might expect. Similar to the original Sunrise Gathering, it’s an immersive, creative, tactile, storytelling experience, with a theme important to youth and the Koa Fund mission.”

“People are really moved by the Sunrise Gathering," says Zaria. "The response to our invitation to engage as a community in entertaining, fun and meaningful ways has been tremendous and so true to my sister.”

They’ve also created Koa Cafés, annual forums at which young people learn from and build on their communal voice. The first Koa Café, in February 2022, provided an opportunity for Koa’s friends, classmates and cousins to talk and grieve and heal in a way that Gabi says was “fun and beautiful."

“We let the young people take over and let them build on each other’s words and each other's activities with Koa,” AnneMarie says. “This helped us put words and a voice to what we wanted the Koa Fund to do. It gave us, as adults, an insight and an experience of how young people integrate the paradox of dualities such as joy and pain, forever and never, happiness and sadness, struggle and strength.”

Subsequent Koa Café events have been facilitated by a Koa Fund subgroup called the Youth Connection Cultivators (YCC), a set of four or five older teens and several ad hoc participants who meet and share weekly meals with the founders. The most recent Koa Café, held in April at the offices of Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of Southwest Michigan, was created for “Bigs and Littles” from Big Pride, a BBBS program through which LGBTQIA+ youth ages 6 to 16 are paired with supportive LGBTQIA+ mentors.

Perhaps the Koa Fund’s greatest community impact happens through its “AOK Day,” an annual summer event with a theme of gratitude and acts of kindness. Its name was inspired by Koa's campaign motto, “K-O-A is A-O-K,” when she ran for school president in fifth grade.

AOK Day debuted on the summer solstice in 2022 as the first official fundraiser of the Koa Fund. Because of the Covid pandemic, it was a virtual event to communicate to participants about investment opportunities with the fund’s grantee partners, including Area Youth Climate Coalition, Fire Historical and Cultural Arts Collaborative, Kids Food Basket, Gay Straight Alliance, Outfront Kalamazoo, Girls Build Kalamazoo, Speak It Forward, and J.A.B.S. (Justice Against Bullying @ School). The Koa Fund website emphasizes that 100% of donations go through the Koa Fund to these partners. As of October, the Koa Fund has made 36 grants to 17 organizations.

Changes in focus

But as much as the family seeks to create positive change for youth through the Koa Fund, their endeavors have also led to positive change for themselves. Like Dean, Koa's aunt, AnneMarie, made a significant shift in her career path. She had left a 20-plus-year career as a marketing executive at Kellogg’s a few months before Koa died. “After Koa’s passing, I didn’t go back to work

for some time. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew my previous career focus just didn’t feel right anymore. So I started to have the courage to think about doing something completely different.”

AnneMarie returned to school at the University of Michigan, where she will earn a master’s degree in social work in May. She is currently doing her field practicum at GenderNexus, a nonprofit organization in Indianapolis that, according to its website, “empowers gender-diverse people and their loved ones to live healthy, authentic, joyful lives.”

“Nothing has felt so good for me in a really long time," she says. "Sometimes I feel like sh-- for having anything good come out of Koa’s passing, and at the same time I feel like I’m on the right path.”

Zaria, who recently married and now lives near Columbus, Ohio, has also grown in unexpected ways. “I have found healing in the practice of yoga,” Zaria says, “and have become a certified yoga teacher.” With the Koa Fund, she creates and leads Koa Yoga, inspired by stories of Koa and her identity.

Her Koa Yoga sessions have drawn several dozen people.

Seeing the dualities

Throughout these Koa Fund activities and endeavors runs the theme of duality, the family says. Pain and joy. Fear and courage. Hurt and healing. Grief and gratitude. An unbearable wound and tremendous growth.

“It takes courage to be valiant and be willing to go into that space where you’re going to grow,” says Gabi.

“I’ve learned that it’s OK for seemingly opposite emotions to coexist,” says Zaria.

“Our story will always include the tension of mystery and unknowing,” says Dean. “But Koa has given us insight into this reality of the world we live in — the culture, the society, the stories, the expectations, the human programming.

"When she was here, she struggled with the reality of the world versus what the world could be. With her life and with her passing, I’ve seen how two things that are seemingly tensions can pull against each other or they can come together to create beautiful new things.”