The Kentucky Pharmacist- - November/December 2020

FEATURE Article Turning Tragedy into giving back Kentucky Pharmacists Association member Sarah M. Lawrence has worked to turn a personal tragedy into a commitment to serve the less fortunate in our community. In July 2008 Sarah lost her four-year-old daughter Riley Jane and her five-year-old niece Claudia Faye Wadlington to a hit and run driver, in an incident that shocked the Louisville community. Since that time, Sarah and her husband David, joined by sons Henry (born 2011) and Sam (born 2012) have worked to honor Riley and Claudia’s memory through acts of service and charity. One of their efforts is the Riley Jane Lawrence Scholarship at the Center for Gifted Studies, Western Kentucky University. This scholarship provides funds for a gifted and talented student of limited means to attend a summer enrichment program at WKU. Amanda Lich, Senior Philanthropy Officer for WKE shared the following about Sarah’s efforts: “As is often the case in philanthropy, Sarah’s fundraising and volunteer efforts have followed her passions.

As a gifted young person, Sarah herself participated in the programming offered at The Center for Gifted Studies at WKU. When her daughter, Riley Jane, lost her life in a tragic accident, she took a personal tragedy and transformed it into a life-changing opportunity by creating the Riley Jane Lawrence Scholarship Fund for VAMPY (The Summer Program for Verbally and Mathematically Precocious Youth). She has held various fundraisers (virtually and in person) to solicit support for the fund and has actively engaged in stewarding every gift to the fund by conveying to donors her heartfelt appreciation. Sarah is a natural fundraiser and those around her are inspired to give in response to her personal commitment and her belief in the program benefiting from her efforts.”

Outreach to those experiencing homelessness is another area of interest for the Lawrence family. Since 2017 they have been involved with an organization known as Snacks in Sacks, which provides bags of snack food for distribution to individuals living in camps and on the streets of Louisville. In December 2018, Sarah and David held their inaugural Kindness Party in honor of Riley’s birthday. In the weeks leading up to the party, they gathered donations from family and friends using an online wish list and met on Riley’s birthday with a group of about 25 friends to assemble the food into bags of non-perishable snacks.

400 bags were created at the first Kindness Party, and the event has been held three more times since, netting a remarkable 3464 bags for distribution by homeless outreach crews in the Louisville area. Rev. Darryl Glass from the Street Reach ministry had this to say about Sarah’s impact on his outreach: “Sarah’s work with the Snacks in Sacks organization with regards to our street outreach has been invaluable. There is no way that we could continue to serve every day without the snack bags she is responsible for providing. They are such a popular mainstay in the homeless community. I am so grateful for all she has done.”

Recently, Sarah has taken a leadership role with Snacks in Sacks, organizing events (pre-COVID), managing the group’s online wish list, and building the organization’s web page. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, although the organization has been unable to organize large snack bag filling events, Sarah has helped to keep its outreach alive, marshalling resources and keeping supporters engaged. In July 2020, the Lawrence family hosted a socially distanced snack bag filling event, collecting supplies from supporters all over the country and inviting other families to join them, one household at a time, in making snack bags outside, with masks and other safety precautions. Every night for a week, the Lawrence family along with friends and family worked to make snack bags with the donated supplies, and the result at the end of the week was an impressive 1283 snack bags. Trisha Drake, founder and President of |8| Kentucky Pharmacists Association | November/December 2020