Community rallies behind Parker family

The Parker sisters (from left) Molly, Vanessa, Cherry and Hanna with Supervisor Dorothy Jaeckle (second from right) during a recent fundraiser Photo courtesy of Fran Roach A photograph on the Parker sisters’ website shows their family during a happier time: the four young women, Cherry, Hanna, Vanessa and Molly, flanking their parents, Richard and Cindy. There’s a lighted Christmas tree in the background of their River’s Bend home, and they’re all smiling as if life couldn’t possibly be better.

That image was irrevocably altered June 23, when Richard Parker allegedly shot Cindy to death and seriously wounded a local high school football player who came to her defense outside a Chester pizza restaurant.

Less than a month later, the Parker sisters sat for another photo to be published in a local newspaper. This time, there were no smiles, no parents, only four heartbroken young women struggling to comprehend the incomprehensible and gather up the pieces of their shattered lives.

Their father was in jail facing murder charges. Their mother was gone. They had no savings, no life insurance and a mountain of bills – including the $1,500 monthly mortgage payment for the family home where the youngest three sisters still lived. The debts far exceeded the limited financial resources of their extended family.

“We were really worried about losing the house because that’s all we had,” said Cherry Parker, who took a leave of absence from her job in San Diego and flew home to guide her sisters through the aftermath of their mother’s murder.

The instant Debi Girvin saw the photo in the newspaper, recognized the pain on the Parkers’ faces and read about their plight, she knew she had to do something to help.

“What a place to be left in because of acts you had nothing to do with,” Girvin said. “It was just a horrible, horrible event. They’re dealing with a trauma few of us can understand. But I think people looked at the girls and could see themselves, their children or another family member trying to cope with that kind of situation.”

Jon Schoepflin, who taught Molly Parker for three years at Elizabeth Davis Middle School, had the same reaction when he arrived at the Parker home to pay his condolences.

As he sat and talked with Cherry (24), Hanna (21), Vanessa (19) and Molly (14), one thought kept crashing around inside Schoepflin’s brain: These girls are in serious trouble, and they have nowhere to turn.

“They made a point very early on that they were going to make it on their own,” Schoepflin recalled. “I said, ‘You’re going to make it, all right, but it won’t be on your own.’”

Schoepflin started sending out e-mails as soon as he returned home, hoping initially to drum up enough financial support from the local community to support the sisters for one month and “give them some breathing room so they could grieve for their mom.”

Depending upon whom you talk to, the response to those initial e-mails was either “overwhelming” or “amazing” or “incredible.” Suffice to say, it exceeded anyone’s wildest imagination – most of all, the sisters who had no idea that they were about to be enveloped within a circle of love and concern by a coalition of total strangers.

“For whatever reason, we all came together really well,” Girvin said. “There were absolutely no egos involved, which is astounding in and of itself. Nobody questioned it. We all just said, ‘OK, let’s roll with it, and get it done.’”

It wasn’t that simple. Schoepflin’s initial todo list included 70 to 80 items, most of which concerned repairs of varying degrees to the house.

“Seeing everything that needed to be done, I was like, ‘Oh my God,’” said River’s Bend resident Tracie Akins. “I had tears in my eyes. I had a hard time getting through that e-mail.”

Once word got out, volunteers literally descended on the Parker home. They repaired broken light fixtures, painted inside and out, replaced rotten wood siding and landscaped the yard’s overgrown mulch beds.

One local contractor donated both the lumber and his labor to replace a dilapidated deck on the back of the house. A home-improvement store donated new carpet and another donated paint. After consulting with staging experts last week, Schoepflin expected the local realtor who volunteered his services to have the house listed for sale by Sunday.

“I thought we’d be lucky to get the house on the market by October,” he said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine we’d get this kind of response.”

Money also poured in like water. A woman committed $400 every other week for an indefinite period of time. Someone else agreed to pay the sisters’ utilities. When a formal home inspection last month revealed the house needed an additional $10,000 in repairs, a benefactor stepped forward to foot the bill.

Buoyed by a $52,000 donation from Bruce Gottwald, a trust fund that was created for the sisters has swelled to approximately $150,000 – and that doesn’t include the proceeds from a golf tournament and silent auction that are scheduled for Sept. 17 at River’s Bend.

A bevy of items already have been donated for the silent auction. Two local car dealerships have committed new vehicles as hole-in-one prizes for the golf tournament. Several other local companies have signed on as sponsors.

“It just really restores your faith that there are good people out there in the world,” Akins said.

Girvin pointed out that the trust fund serves two purposes: providing money for Molly’s post-secondary education and helping the sisters become financially stable during a period of extreme upheaval.

“We never intended to raise money to make them wealthy,” she added. “We want to enable them to continue their lives in as normal a way as possible.”

As Akins noted, the sisters “haven’t been just sitting around.” They spent hours cleaning out the house – including the emotionally draining process of going through their parents’ belongings – and filled several large bins with goods for a yard sale that ultimately raised $5,500.

“These four people represent what is good in our society. They represent the work ethic and grit and determination we all want our children to have,” Schoepflin said. “Their parents did something right with these girls, and everybody who meets them recognizes that immediately.”

Hanna and Vanessa are both working to put themselves through college. Cherry is trying to figure out her job situation in Virginia while also going through the process of gaining legal custody of her youngest sister. Molly just started her freshman year at Thomas Dale.

“We all want to be successful in the future, and we know what we have to do,” Cherry said. “You never imagine that anything like this would happen to you, but we have to move on and get through it.”

Inevitably, the hardest part is yet to come for the Parker sisters. At some point, their house will be sold, and all the volunteers will return to their normal lives, leaving the women plenty of quiet time to reflect on everything that has happened over the last few months – and brace for what is yet to come, namely, the impending trial of their father.

For now, they’re still caught up in a whirlwind of activity: therapy sessions several times a week, work, school and thank-you cards. Lots and lots of thank-you cards.

Cherry has hand-written cards on behalf of her sisters to everyone who has helped them in their time of need. To date, she’s mailed more than 300 cards, each one living proof that sometimes it does indeed take a village to raise a family.

“I sit back sometimes and wonder, ‘How in the world did we do this?’” Girvin said. “Well, there have been a lot of people who have put in a lot of work to get this done – and everyone who has participated goes away better for having done it.

“This is truly coming from the heart,” she added. “It’s a labor of love, and you can’t explain that.”

Parker Family Golf Tournament

 

A golf tournament to benefit the Parker family will be held on Friday, Sept. 17, at River’s Bend Golf Club, 11700 Hogan’s Alley in Chester.

Registration on tournament day will begin at noon, with a shotgun start at 1 p.m. The fee will be $65 per player and $260 per team of four. Play will be four-man captain’s choice. The cost includes driving range, greens fees, cart, dinner and prizes. Lunch will be available for purchase on arrival. A silent auction will be held after the tournament and dinner.

Sponsorships are available from $150- $1,000. Donations for the silent auction are welcome. Monetary donations may also be made at www.parkerfamilyfund.com.

For more information, call 530-1000.