She knew he loved her. That much was clear.
But when 17-year-old Jeannette Echavarria lost her father, Greg, on April 8, her world was rocked.
“I think she was shocked,” said Redondo Union High School Track and Field Coach Bob Leetch. “She didn’t know where to turn or what to do.”
That’s when Leetch and the rest of Echavarria’s RUHS family set up a crowdfunding effort to support her going forward. The community’s response was explosive.
Echavarria had already lost her mother when she was five years old. After bouncing between family members, she was able to spend the last seven years with her father.
The two, Leetch said, were a magnetic pair. “He just adored her, and everything with her was ‘Daddy this,’ or ‘Daddy that.’ She was so protective and caring. I’d see them at track meets, and they were always looking out for each other.”
He was, however, in poor health. He suffered from a variety of issues, most prominently hepatitis and diabetes, eventually forcing him to dialysis three times a week.
Leetch has coached Echavarria, a junior at RUHS, for a year. She came into the program as a sophomore, and despite her relative inexperience, she’s already considered among the team’s top runners. According to RUHS Track Coach Julie Ferron, Echavarria is on pace to become the team’s lead cross-country runner next year, and then to run at the college level the next year.
But the issue now, as it had been before, is money; Greg Echavarria was on permanent disability, and the two were receiving state-funded support, but not thriving.
“They were really struggling, but when you saw them together, you wouldn’t know it; they were always very optimistic, and planning for the future,” Leetch said. “Everything was about grooming her to be an independent young woman to take care of herself going forward.”
That’s where the GoFundMe effort has come in. In less than two days after it began, April 13, more than $15,000 had been raised for Jeannette from across Redondo Beach. As of April 20, the total sits at more than $22,000. The funds will be used for two things: To help solidify Jeanette’s financial future; and to finance Greg’s funeral and memorial, which Jeanette hopes to have at Veteran’s Park, where the two bonded in her youth.
“She was overwhelmed with the response,” said Jeanette’s counselor, Denise Holmes. “Not just monetary, but how much she was receiving from people she didn’t even know.”
Before Greg’s death, Holmes nominated Jeanette for recognition from the school’s PTSA — an honor that Jeanette wasn’t able to receive in person, as she was by her father’s side in the hospital. “She’s amazing not because of her circumstances, but because of who she is,” Holmes said. “Her grace, her dignity and her strong character.”
The paperwork has been filed for Jeanette to become an emancipated minor; though as Leetch notes, the Sea Hawk Track Team will remain her family. “It’s hard to imagine this team without her…she’s critical,” he said.
“She said to me, ‘Can you imagine if I didn’t join this team? I don’t know what I’d do.’”
For more information, visit GoFundMe.com/u3yrkzv8
