Megan Keleman was 25 when a stranger shot and killed her and himself at a Taco Bell drive-thru.
The tragedy in August shook Greater Akron and made nationwide news, but that’s not what Keleman’s family wanted Megan remembered for.
Nick, Kelly and Matthew Keleman have started a website for different charities their daughter and sister, Megan Keleman, was passionate about before her death in August.
“Her thing was always helping people,” her dad, Nick Keleman, said Wednesday.
Megan’s dad, mom and brother, with the help of a family friend who designs commercial websites, launched https://megansrainbowofhope.org on Jan. 1.
“Our mission is to honor Megan’s legacy by supporting & promoting causes that she supported and to provide hope to everyone by spreading happiness & kindness like confetti,” the Keleman family says on the website, repeating Megan’s mantra about happiness.
Nick Keleman navigates megansrainbowofhope.org, the website his family has started to support charities in honor of his slain daughter, Megan.
The site is carefully curated to reflect Megan’s passions.
It raises money for business students attending Cleveland State University, where Megan received her undergraduate and master’s degrees.
It also raises money for a second scholarship for the Six District Educational Compact, which provides career-technical educational programs and resources for students in the Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson, Kent, Stow-Munroe Falls, Tallmadge and Woodridge school systems.
While attending Stow-Munroe Falls High School, Megan was enrolled in Sixth District’s Engineering Academy, which fed Megan’s “creativity, thirst for knowledge and eagerness of testing boundaries to flourish,” the website said.
The site also supports four nonprofits:
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Shelter Care, based in Tallmadge, helps at-risk children and provides counseling for teens and young adults and their families. Megan started working there when she was in college and hoped to some day direct the organization.
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Rubber City Rescue, an Akron-based organization that help helps animals from across Summit County. Megan loved dogs and had Penny, a black Labrador mix, with her in the car when she was killed. Rubber City Rescue went to the scene and took Penny, who was not injured, cleaned her up and delivered Penny to Megan’s family hours later.
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Girls on the Run: Megan volunteered for this organization that promotes positive mental health, self-esteem and physical fitness for girls in elementary and middle schools.
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Guns to Gardens: This group takes unwanted or unused gun and turns them into garden tools, like trowels. Megan wasn’t involved in this group and had nothing to do with guns, pro or con, Nick Keleman said. But the family chose this charity as part of their ongoing efforts to talk about gun violence.
“These are all the things she’d be doing is she was still alive,” Nick said, adding that the website logged more than 2,500 clicks during the first three days, including people from as far away as Mexico and France.
Kelly Keleman says a website created in her daughter’s honor will evolve and grow over time.
Megan’s mom, Kelly, said the site will evolve and grow with time, featuring scholarship winners, information about the nonprofits and the family’s ongoing efforts to promote gun safety and mental health awareness.
The Keleman family is following the example of Fred Guttenberg, who became an activist against gun violence after his 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg was murdered during the 2018 Parkland high school shooting in Florida.
As part of his grieving, Nick said he read Guttenberg’s book, “Find the Helpers,” which aims to help people find hope amid darkness by fighting for change. Nick and Guttenberg have also talked several times by phone.
“It’s been hard. The holidays were tough,” Nick said.
The family did put up a Christmas tree, but unwrapping the ornaments — many homemade or bought while on weekend family trips — without Megan was painful, Kelly said.
“It got to a point where I didn’t want to put any more ornaments on the tree,” Kelly said. “Each one is a different memory.”
Church family, friends and complete strangers offer love and support
At the same time, Kelly and Nick said they’ve found comfort wrapped in the love people have shown — not only from their church family, neighbors and friends, but from strangers.
Someone, for example, planted flowers in the pots on their front porch, which was filled for weeks with food and flowers left by others.
Someone at Yours Truly in Hudson recognized the family and paid for their meal.
Nick Keleman talks about multiple causes, including scholarships and shelter care, featured on a new website to honor the memory of his daughter, Megan.
And then there’s a woman, who has only identified herself as an anonymous grandmother, who sends them letters and little items she hopes bring them comfort.
One package contained three crosses, each with one of their names. The woman also hand-knit pockets for each cross, explaining Nick’s is yellow because he always ate hot dogs with mustard when he and Megan went to Cleveland Guardians home openers.
The woman made Kelly’s pouch red, like the soles of Megan’s Christian LouBoutin shoes, which Megan bought to celebrate her educational achievements.
And the knit pouch for Matthew’s cross is a “joyful, vivid purple,” the woman said, to represent the energy Megan radiated and that Matthew now carries with him.
Kelly, reading the woman’s letters aloud to a reporter Wednesday, wondered if the purple was a sign. A friend had dreams after Megan died that were filled with purple flashes.
“Maybe that’s where the purple comes in,” Kelly said.
It wouldn’t be the first sign of comfort the family has found.
A photo of Megan Keleman is displayed in Keleman family’s living room in Stow.
Days after Megan’s death, as the community mourned at a public vigil, the Kelemans were at home watching a stream of the vigil while praying with members of their church.
Nick said he asked God to show him a sign that Megan was OK after her death.
“All of the sudden, everyone’s phones were blowing up with pictures of a rainbow at the vigil,” Nick said. “I looked at Kelly and said, ‘That’s my sign.’”
That sign, the rainbow, and Megan’s hope for a better world are now permanently built into the website, MegansRainbowofHope.org, her family said.
“Even though she’s not with us,” Nick said, “her spirit is going to be helping out.”
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Stow family starts charity website to honor woman killed in drive-thru