For Katelyn. My sister. My friend.
Katelyn’s Kollection is one of my favorite parts of Sweetwater Oaks. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to include Katelyn somehow in this adventure, but I wasn’t really clear on the specifics at first.
For those of you who don’t know my sister, Katelyn, passed away 6 years ago today from a blood clot after her daughter, Addison, was born two weeks prior. If you had the pleasure of meeting her you know what a wonderful person she was and how great of a mother she would be. Katelyn was a kind, brilliant, and loving soul. And while most would describe her as sweet and reserved she also could put it to you if need be. Katelyn loved fiercely. She was loyal and understanding, a truly great friend.
Some of Katelyn’s favorite things were spending time with friends and family at her favorite places, reading books, singing, and decorating for Christmas (and enjoying all the holiday festivities afterward!). She was also a very talented artist. My initial thought of how to include her was to use some of her drawings/doodles as designs. She was always drawing something - wether she had paper or not! And we used her talent often for many different projects and activities, most times with me coming up with the idea and then she would bring it to life by drawing it for us. We, along with our mom, spent many a fun hour making spirit bags and signs through TFC, designing our winter retreat shirts, and eventually adding camp banquet themes and shirts to that list. Katelyn has notebooks full of doodles, we have her art class portfolio from high school (thanks Mrs. Duke), and I have several of our “cabin cleanup” verses she drew, but I decided to save those things and that idea to revisit later.
For now I wanted to focus on things about Katelyn and things that she loved. I want to find ways to make her memory and influence last even when we’re no longer here - something more than pretty pictures on tshirts. So I started thinking of all the things that mattered to her and her favorite places and activities and have come up with what I think would be a plan she would love, appreciate, and approve of.
The plan:
1. Katelyn loved to read. She loved a good story. Though not as attached to a neat and happy ending as I we shared most of the same taste in literature which only strengthened our friendship. She loved the places that became real to readers in books - places most would probably never have the chance to visit otherwise. She also loved the seemingly idle activity that was really an enjoyable mind workout. One of our favorite stores is BooksAMillion - we could spend hours in there searching for books to read. Katelyn never asked for much, however, I believe the year Santa unexpectedly brought her a Kindle was one of the best Christmases ever. She had no trouble finding volumes to fill it quickly. So with this love in mind our thought is to help build back libraries and the love of reading through book donations each month to schools in our area. As a teacher and mother I believe Katelyn would love this idea and be excited about the doors it could potentially open for children. These books will have a dedication in the front listing Katelyn’s name and her status as a South Montgomery County Academy alumnus class of 2010.
2. Katelyn loved the Lord and His church. One of her favorite places was Wiregrass Christian Youth Camp. She loved the atmosphere, the mission, the people, and she most especially loved the singing. If you have never experienced night devo singing at Camp Wiregrass you’re missing out. Only one time have I been in the presence of a more beautiful sound. Katelyn loved to sing. On more than one occasion we failed to be as observant as we could have been while going down the road because we were having one of our “jam sessions”. Katelyn really loved to lift her voice in praise to God whether at a singing, devotional, camp, worship service, or in the car on a road trip. Considering these two things in unison the idea became song books for camp. The camp has had many different versions over the years, however, being in the setting and climate it is they don’t always last very long. We would love to be able to make sturdy books and replace them as need be. This would not only potentially increase song selection (Blue Skies and Rainbows can get a little old pretty fast - iykyk!) but would also provide the words for everyone to read every time so that they may not only memorize them but truly take them to heart and more fully understand the meaning behind them.
3. Katelyn loved Christmas. I’m not sure if it was the lights, the music, the food, the family time, or all of the above that she loved most but I know she LOVED Christmas. It was one of the parts of parenthood she was looking forward to the most - sharing the magic of Christmas. I know she enjoyed giving. From an early age she and I handmade gifts for our family out of whatever art supplies we could find in the house. For the longest time Ninny, our grandmother, had a styrofoam ball snowman held together by toothpicks on her kitchen window seal we made her one year. Nin still carry’s the keychain we made another year. As we grew up and Katelyn’s skills improved our gifts became sturdier and more thought out (we now had money to buy supplies lol). More than one year she hand painted each of us our own special Christmas ornament - some of our most prized possessions. She also enjoyed decorating for Christmas. Sometimes I’m not sure why because it is such a task, but then I turn on the Christmas music or movie and we get started and I begin remembering how much fun it is to be with one another, singing, and making something beautiful. Katelyn was a pro at decorating. Everything she touched was perfect - tree lighting, ornament placement, topper arrangement, even the gift wrap matched and looked stunning. Especially the gift wrap. Outside lights were more my area of expertise - doesn’t require as much skill just the knowledge that the more lights there are the prettier the picture lol. She loved to go look at lights though. We’d ride down the road pointing out the window at various places exclaiming in excitement. One of our favorites growing up was a “moving” tractor installment on the backside of a pond we always saw on our way to County Line. We had been to Calloway Gardens several times with our family and had often talked (and ok maybe dreamed a little too) about how absolutely cool it would be to do something similar on the trail of the hayride our school used to do. I have thought several times since this day 6 years ago how much she would enjoy having something like that at our house mixed with a Christmas Carol sing a long while sipping hot chocolate. Though unsure of a date or even if it is feasible this year the current thought (ok in complete transparency my thoughts and vision that depend greatly on the help and hard labor of others lol) is to turn a section of our pasture into an either drive or walk through lights area ending at a (yet unbuilt - stay with me on this vision part here lol) pavilion of sorts to sing carols and have hot chocolate and other Christmas goodies. I’m currently thinking this would be a one weekend in December kind of thing, however, the details are still VERY fluid. My main goal and what I think Katelyn would enjoy the most though is lights, singing, and spending time together.
So now that you’ve read all through our plans I want to share with you what Sweetwater Oaks will do to help raise funds for these projects. There will be a tshirt drop to correspond with each project under the label Katelyn’s Kollection.
Katelyn’s Kollection will consist of the following:
1. Original Butterfly Collection: annually in august of every year we will release a new butterfly design. All designs will go to help fund all projects, however, each will have specific ties - this one to the book donations. Katelyn loved butterflies and her favorite color was purple so this years design (pictured below) is of a butterfly on a violet shirt with a personalized logo for the collection.
2. Christmas Collection: Sweetwater Oaks plans to release an original holiday design each year, however, we will also release a Katelyn’s Kollection Christmas design on November 10th (her birthday) each year as well. This design will be in conjunction with the Christmas lights and carol singing. I’ve already been working on this years and can’t wait to show it to you guys!
3. Camp Collection: this will be a faith based design released each spring. Again all designs will go to help fund all projects but this one will be mostly utilized for songbook production, songbook replacement, or camp scholarships and other donations.
We hope you all can help us bring these plans and ideas to fruition and share Katelyn’s life with others. We hope her influence for good doesn’t stop with us but goes out into the world as a shining light for His glory. Thank you all for listening, caring, and sharing! We love you!
💙The Sweetwater Oaks Family