Kayli Wills can’t remember doesn’t remember the day — her third birthday — a drunk driver killed her grandmother and aunt on Route 110 nearly 11 years ago.
But she has lived through the pain and loss her family experienced since. “I’ve talked about it a lot,” she said.
And for the past five years, she and her mother have participated in the Walk Like MADD fundraiser in Branford in an effort to turn the tragedy into something positive.
“They were angels here on earth walking around us,” Kayli’s mother, Violet, said Friday about Kathleen Wills, 48, and Brittany Wills,14, who died Dec. 13, 2001. “They touched and impacted so many lives.”
One of those they touched was Lucy Andrade, Kayli’s current coach on the Division 13 Shelton Youth Football cheerleading team.
“Brittany was a cheerleader in Shelton, and she personally knew Britt because she used to babysit her son,” Violet said.
CONTRIBUTED The Division 13 cheerleading team, which will take part in the Walk Like MADD fundraiser this year.
“It was really nice of her to approach us,” she said. “This is a good way to bring awareness to our youth.”
On Saturday a dozen of Kayli’s teammates team will be joining a total of about 25 friends and family on the Cheering like MADD for Kathy and Brittany Wills team at the fundraiser.
“It’s a good way to go out and honor them and raise some money for a great organization,” Violet said.
And that work is an important, Kayli, an eighth-grader at Shelton Intermediate School, said, because even with school health classes to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol abuse, “a lot of the kids just don’t care about it.”
In the lead-up to the event they set a fundraising goal of $1,000. As of Friday evening they already had $1,460 in the bank.
And theirs isn’t the only team from Shelton taking part. TEAM 14, made up of friends and family of Viviana Cavalli, a Shelton teenager who was killed in a drunk driving accident in 2009.
That team has also surpassed its fundraising goal, and stood at the $1,941 mark Friday. Click here to read more on TEAM 14 from Shelton Patch.
Update: Wills’ team raised a total of $2,191 for MADD at Saturday’s event, and TEAM 14 raised $2,492.
