A hero you haven’t heard about, until now.
You have a great idea. You want to build a Memorial for the saddest thing that has ever happened in Colorado. You and a friend named Ruth go to the 4th of July fireworks with a tin cup, and you start asking for donations.
After a few hours you are tired, but you have raised $75. That was the beginning.
This is not an easy project. It is a very sad event, and many people don’t want to even think about it. A lot of people say they want to help, and many try, but the process is difficult and raising public money is difficult. You keep trying.
You hold fundraisers, a Golf Tournament at Columbine Country Club, silent auctions, a 5K run and you set up booths at all of the local festivals.
Your name is Kirsten Kreiling. You have a family, a beautiful family, and they support you. You run a printing business on Coal Mine by the Post Office, and you care. You don’t even know anyone directly involved in the tragedy, but you get involved anyway. You want to build the Memorial.
You are well aware that the families of the murdered children and teacher spent all of the money they had raised to tear out the old library at Columbine High School and build the new one. You know that all of that was done by contractors volunteering and without any money from the Jefferson County School District, and you are aware that, when the library was done the money the families had was gone.
Yes, the library at Columbine High School was built by the families of the victims. They didn’t have any money left to build a memorial, and the County wasn’t offering to participate in any way. Neither was the State.
So you, Kirsten, decided to do this on your own.
You had help. Many volunteers spent hours and hours trying to raise money, and found out how hard it was. People were unsure, and kept waiting for a big money donor to pay for it, but the big money donor never came.
So you and your volunteers and others raised money. You and the Columbine Community raised money by selling paper Columbines, selling Memorial Pins, by working hard and by never giving up. You and Ruth and the local Dairy Queen and others raised several hundred thousand dollars to build the Memorial, almost all of it small donations by the Community of Columbine people who had opened their hearts and had contributed one “paper Columbine flower” at a time.
In the end, there would be two generous donations by President Clinton, effort by many others, and a contribution from almost all of the Columbine Community. A paper flower here, a Memorial Pin there, and hours and hours and hours of work, and the volunteers slowly made progress. Families of the victims had helped too, and others helped in the ways they could. The Memorial Web Page has the long list of contributors. Then an anonymous donor, a very nice man who is not rich, but who cared, gave another $50,000 to the Memorial fund, and the task was done, or so you thought.
In fact, the task for you was just beginning. You, Kirsten, succeeded Bob Easton as the President of the memorial committee.
Now it was up to you to find a way to maintain the Memorial. The project was scaled back, but it required private donations for maintenance, as the County and school district wouldn’t fund any of the costs.
One of the family members I spoke to said that you were not just the President, but the General, Captain, Sergeant and foot soldier. You spent hours and then years working on this, frustrated by the problems and the bureaucracy, while running your business and raising your family. You paid a serious price to accomplish your goal.
You asked, sometimes begged donors to help. You were behind Home Depot and Pavestone and other contributors, and you kept them working and helping for years. You arranged and made sure that local groups like the Columbine Kiwanis had clean-up days and that the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts did the same.
What cost the government $500 Million for a smaller Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, you accomplished for peanuts. Small inexpensive peanuts.
And it worked. The Memorial is beautiful and visited by thousand of people, and very few if any of them even know your name.
You have been almost invisible in the process, except for the people that saw you do the work. You have stayed behind the scenes, along with your great friend Ruth and others, and worked, with little if any recognition.
Your friends know why. You didn’t do this for yourself, and neither did any of the other volunteers. You did this to honor the children and the teacher lost that day. You did it to honor them, and to be sure that people remember them: Cassie, Matt, Dan, Daniel, Steven, Kelly, Kyle, Lauren, Isaiah, Rachel, Corey, John, and Dave.
You did your job, and most people don’t even know who you are. That is a beautiful thing.
You have just resigned as the President of the Memorial Committee, and people need to know: You are Kirsten Kreiling. You are a hero, and so are your children and your husband.
Thank you for your years and years of work. Thank you for your years and years of courage. Thank you Kirsten Kreiling.
And thanks to all of the volunteers, contributors, contractors, other Committee members and other unnamed people that spent time to raise the money for the Columbine Memorial. Because of the hard work of all of these people it is a place of remembrance and healing.
Kirsten has resigned as President of the Memorial Committee, and she is going back to her family and a normal life after more than ten years.
Thanks Kirsten.
Randy Brown is a Columbine Parent. He lives in Littleton. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
