In the Name of Stephanie A Little Nourishment for a Time of Disaster August 2006

by Jim Frazier, with Janet Frazier
Photos by Russell Byrne

It was every parent’s worst nightmare. A phone call at 10 a.m. on Dec. 16, 2000 from a staff member at the Sutter Roseville Hospital informed us that our two daughters had been involved in an accident. I think we were out of the house, in the car, and rolling up Highway 4 before five minutes had elapsed. When we arrived at Sutter Roseville Hospital we learned that our older daughter, Stephanie, had died of her injures. Her 17-year-old sister, Lindsey, was critically injured with massive internal injuries, broken ribs, and a fractured back.

We learned that our daughters had been traveling down Highway 50 above Placerville, and an oncoming car encountered a patch of black ice, slid across the centerline, and collided head-on with their car. It was a horrific accident, the wife of the driver of the other car died, and his two children were seriously injured.

The accident swept through our lives with a shattering impact. We had scheduled a company Christmas party for my construction company on the very day that we got the message. We were on our cell phones driving down the highway giving people the message that changed happy anticipation to mourning and tears.

Lindsey’s life was spared only through the intervention of a fantastic trauma surgeon. We brought her home at 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve. There was no Merry Christmas at the Frazier’s home the next day and, in fact, Christmas is still a difficult time for us.

Two days later, at 2 p.m. Lindsey was sitting in a wheelchair at her sister’s funeral. On December 30 a group of friends joined us in the poignant task of moving Steph’s stuff into our garage and cleaning up the apartment. December 30 was also our 22nd wedding anniversary.

The Power of a Sandwich
Following the accident we maintained bedside vigil throughout the day, evening, and into the night. At 4 a.m. Janet got up to tend to Lindsey, and suddenly felt faint. She hadn’t eaten in more than a day. Out of pity and kindness, that nurse shared her sandwich with Janet. It was such a simple act of generosity! But the small gesture ignited a flame in Janet’s heart to provide the same kindness for other families with children in crisis situations, that the nurse had shown to us.

Janet enlisted me in starting a program called Network of Care, which supplies snack bags to hospitals, especially in pediatric units, ICU Nurseries, and trauma centers. Each bag has Cup–O–Noodle soup, a package of microwavable ravioli, Jell-O or a fruit cup, a granola bar, crackers, plasticware, and a little flier explaining who we are and what we are doing.

The snack bags find their way into the hands of many bewildered people who, like us, may have been snatched out of their routine, with no notice, and have possibly spent hours in the ER with a child who may be facing death. Our little meal helps the members of a stricken family remain together. You can’t tell a suffering 4-year-old, “I’m going to grab a bite to eat.’

Our little bags provide a more subtle and important outcome in revealing to distraught people the presence of other people in the world who care for them. When that nurse shared her sandwich with Janet, she nourished more than Janet’s body; the simple act of receiving that gift strengthened Janet’s spirit.

We grew the Network of Care into a web of earnest volunteers including nurses, social workers, pediatricians, hospital staff, and caring people from our community. We’ve created a coalition of people who share the goal of helping families with a simple act of charity in their hour of need. We depend upon the volunteers to do the work.

The Network of Care is supported by the Stephanie Marie Frazier Memorial Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that we set up to receive donations for the program. We are a completely volunteer network. No overhead. As a result, 100 percent of our donations go straight to purchasing the food.

Growing a Network of Care
Walnut Creek Kaiser was our first hospital, which we treated as a pilot project so that we could figure out what processes we needed to put into place to carry out our vision. We distributed our first snack bags on January 2004. Every couple of weeks we went back to the hospital to replace the bags that had been distributed.

As articles began to be published, we received calls from volunteers, and between August 2005 and February of 2006 we had expanded our Network of Care services to 22 hospitals. We’re in ten counties, including San Diego.

We received a big boost in August when we received the Jefferson Award for exemplary public service. The award has been called “A Nobel Prize for Public Service.” The coverage we received from the honor enabled us to expand to children’s hospitals in other areas. We were also one of five selected to receive the Silver Medal from the Jefferson Awards Committee, which means that we’re nominated for the National Award.

We plan to spend the next 2-3 years expanding our service throughout California and, at some point, begin to expand Network of Care into a national organization.

In 2006 we’re focusing on fundraising and raising awareness. We’re creating opportunities for groups to get involved with us. For example, members of a MOMS organization and a Cub Scout Troop filled bags for us. People at the Concord Chevron Office where Janet works, a local arm of the National Charity League in Piedmont, and a church youth group from Queen of All Saints in Concord also filled bags.

Through the end of January, Network of Care helped 3,500 families. We’ve received notes from parents telling us how we helped them in the time of their needs. It warms our hearts to know they were able to accept the gift and be comforted.

We’re honoring our other daughter, Lindsey, as well. One of the precious things in her life was a teddy bear that was given to her in the hospital on Christmas Eve. The bear came from a family we didn’t even know, and it meant a lot to her. So now we sponsor a Bear Jamboree on Christmas Eve. We go to the hospitals and hand out Teddy Bears to the young patients.

Lindsey is doing well. She still has some pain from her lacerated back and her sleep is often broken by horrible nightmares of vehicles smashing together.

Following the accident, Lindsey graduated from Freedom and then from UC Davis with a degree in Psychology. She is one of our Network of Care volunteers and sits on the Board of Directors. She has oversight of the Sacramento Area. We’re proud of her!

Before the accident Janet and I spent a lot of our time and resources chasing the illusion that money and things provide an avenue to security.

After it happened we felt somewhat isolated by our pain. We didn’t personally know anyone who had gone through anything close to this. We didn’t know how to cope with the shock. Since the accident we’ve met with several families in the area who have lost children. At one point or another they sought us out. The first thing out of their mouths is usually, “Does it get better? Will this go away?”

I tell them, “It doesn’t get better. It simply gets less frequent.”
Getting the Network of Care up and running, and now managing its activities and growth, has been good for us. Reaching out in service to others who are hurting has provided dramatic healing for our own wounded spirits. That shared sandwich started a movement that is still growing. The memory of how we felt when that nurse helped us motivates us to expand this program so we can reach out to many more parents who are going through some terrible experience.

Working to Fix the Problem
Another part of our healing has come from working with Senator Tom Torlakson and his staff to get CalTrans to install a medium barrier in the area of the accident. We met with CalTrans’ representatives in an attempt to persuade them to make this change. We discovered that working with a large bureaucracy like this is like walking in mud with a load on your back.

We hired our own highway safety expert to do an analysis. We discovered that over the past 14 years 142 accidents have occurred at that scene and a majority were caused by crossover collisions during winter conditions. The state maintains a grim standard called Death By Mile and that portion of road has met and exceeded the threshold required to get CalTrans’ attention.

The CalTrans officials raised the objection that a medium barrier could create more accidents than it would save. We responded by noting that the number of deaths would be drastically reduced by eliminating head-on collisions such as the one that killed our daughter. There would be more accidents, perhaps, but many fewer deaths.

In 2001 the state finally put rumble strips on that stretch of road – which, of course, will be absolutely ineffectual in preventing future accidents such as the one that took our daughter’s life.

I’m as pleased with the support we received from Senator Torlakson’s office as I am annoyed by the lack of action by CalTrans. It was the first time in our lives that we ever asked assistance of any kind from a politician, and we were impressed by the quality of the help we received from the Senator and from his staff members, Gloria Omania and Robert Oakes.

Following the hearing the state finally dismissed our suggestions in a letter repeating their position that the barrier would create more accidents than it would prevent, while ignoring the fact that such a barrier would clearly save lives. It would have saved Stephanie’s life.

We’re not finished! Our daughter Stephanie never gave up; neither will we.
Stephanie was always full of grit and determination. She was a student who got straight-A’s because she would do things like squeeze homework in during lulls in party activities. She was also a helpful person and would leap to the aid of any human being or animal who needed her help. Network of Care is a fitting way to honor our daughter’s memory. It is a project she would have loved. If she were here, how hard she would be working by our side! How glad she would have been to perform these small but meaningful deeds of service for people in their hour of desperate need!

We operate Network of Care according to the principle that small acts of kindness build upon each other to create a better world. We’re taking steps to create this “better world” in the name of our daughter as a tribute to her memory.°

To help the Fraziers with their project,
send checks or money orders to
Stephanie Marie Frazier Memorial Fund
c/o Bank of the West
2195 Main Street, Suite D
Oakley, CA 94561
If you wish to volunteer your time to help, please contact Janet Frazier at 925-584-4086.