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Benefit dinner honors legacy of aspiring Greene nursing student

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Courtesy of Rachel Schmelzlen

A spaghetti fundraiser to support the Sarah B. Schmelzlen will be held at the Greene County Career & Technology Center on Wednesday, Oct. 26, from 4 to 7 p.m. Schmelzlen was an aspiring nurse whose legacy will on through the scholarship in her name.

Avivacious, aspiring local nursing student’s legacy lives on through the first Spaghetti Dinner in Honor of Sarah Schmelzlen, to be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday inside the Greene County Career & Technology Center’s Culinary Arts Dining Room at 60 Zimmerman Drive, Waynesburg.

Dinners are $7, for take-out or dining in. All proceeds benefit the Sarah Schmelzlen Memorial Scholarship Fund.

“The goal of this is to raise funds to put a student through the (Greene County CTC Practical Nursing Program),” said Sarah’s mother, Rachel Schmelzlen. “The whole theme, the goal, is to keep her memory alive, to honor her. She worked very hard and was doing very well and would have gone on to be a great nurse, and we want another nurse to go on and do well in her place.”

Sarah Schmelzlen, the fourth of six children born to Rachel and Mark Schmelzlen, was a senior at Carmichaels Area High School and a student in the Greene County CTC health assistant program when she died in July 2018, just 17 months after the death of her father, a Waynesburg trooper.

“That was something she never got over,” said Rachel Schmelzlen. “She did a lot of things with her dad. She spent a lot of time outside with him, and she never got over him.”

Rachel Schmelzlen said she and her family were hesitant to discuss the details of Sarah’s death following the lively red-head’s passing.

“It’ll be almost three years since that happened. Losing a child is the absolutely worst thing in the world. It’s something that gets harder as it goes. It’s hard to process things, it’s hard to face things until you get to the moment when you’re ready,” said Schmelzlen. “It was hard for our family to actually say what happened. I’m OK that people know that it was suicide, but that’s not what I feel the theme should be. There is hope. Because her life ended, there will be many people helped that wouldn’t be helped otherwise.”

Schmelzlen sees the spaghetti dinner fundraiser, prepared by the Greene County CTC’s culinary students, as an opportunity for the community to come together after being isolated for so long due to the pandemic.

“There’s a reason for this dinner far more than we can see: hope. COVID separated us. This is our moment to come back together,” Schmelzlen said.

And a moment to remember Sarah.

“She was feisty and she was just full of spirit and life,” Schmelzlen said. “Sarah was such a happy-go-lucky child. I can see her little ponytail bouncing around. She had an ability to build things with wood, without a pattern. She had a heart of gold. I guess that’s part of the reason why I have to do this: If this would have happened to someone she knew, she would’ve been doing anything she could to help that family.”

Bracelets and T-shirts will be available for purchase during the spaghetti dinner, hosted jointly by HOSA Future Health Professionals and Greene County CTC’s Health Assistant Program. Former health assistant program director Stacy Wheaton spearheaded the dinner. There will be a Chinese auction, and attendees will receive literature about the memorial scholarship, made possible through the Community Foundation of Fayette County, and its namesake.

Sarah Schmelzlen had planned to pursue a degree in the Greene County CTC’s licensed practical nursing program.

“The purpose is to help a student through the LPN program at the career and technology center,” said Schmelzlen, adding, “We’re trying to offer hope to those who feel there’s no hope. Other students will realize that’s (suicide) not the answer to their problem.”

While money raised through the spaghetti dinner will go directly into the scholarship fund, folks are welcome to donate directly to the Sarah Memorial Scholarship online at https://www.cffayettepa.org/.

Click “Donate” and choose “Other” in the PayPal dropdown menu.

Before completing the donation, type “Sarah B. Schmelzlen Memorial Fund” in the “Add a Note” section.

Schmelzlen plans to host an event next year; she’s not sure if it will be another dinner or a 5K race, but “there will be future fundraiser programs to honor Sarah,” she said.

“She is missed so greatly,” said Schmelzlen. But “there is hope, and it’s Jesus Christ, so if we can share that and spread that, we’re happy. People need to see that out of Sarah’s death, much good is coming. Her life is living on.”

For more information on the dinner or memorial scholarship, contact Rachel Schmelzlen at 724-231-4319.

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