OPINION

Bangert: After fatal crash, #BringAubreeHome

Dave Bangert
dbangert@jconline.com

n a few years of running trays of coney dogs and thick mugs of root beer to cars parked at Dog 'n Suds, Aubree Kramer would have known that the sight of an off-duty police officer directing traffic on and off Sagamore Parkway on opening day really meant something in Lafayette.

Her friends and coworkers are out to pull in the same sort of traffic on Wednesday night, as they try to raise money to help Kramer's family bring her home from Florida, where she was killed in a car crash over the weekend.

"That's the goal, to see someone have to direct all those cars," said Kaysee Morrison, a friend who worked with Kramer at Dog 'n Suds before the 2014 Lafayette Jefferson High School graduate moved to Florida. For four hours Wednesday, a dollar from every coney dog and root beer will go toward a GoFundMe.com effort started in Kramer's name.

"We just really wanted to get a big crowd," said Kaylee Simms, another of Kramer's friends. "She was just the best. … All you have to do is look at Facebook today and see everyone talking about her. It's just crazy. That's how many people she impacted."

According to an account in the Pensacola News Journal, Kramer, 19, was a passenger in a Honda sedan that Florida Highway Patrol said crossed the center line and hit a Nissan SUV at the intersection of Avalon Boulevard and Santa Monica Street in Santa Rosa County. Kramer was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the account. The drivers in the crash had minor injuries.

On Sunday, coworkers at the Matco Tool franchise where Kramer worked in Pensacola set up the crowdfunding effort, with a goal to raise $30,000 to cover the costs tied to bringing her to Lafayette and for her funeral. As of Monday afternoon, the effort had raised $12,300, as the family traveled to Florida to make arrangements.

"This is all just so much right now," Ireland Kramer, Aubree's sister, said. "This is so unfair and so sad. So unfair. … But it makes me happy to find out that so many people just loved her. To me it's crazy that people are giving the way they are. It's a shock."

Ireland Kramer said her sister moved to Florida in early August. Their grandparents have a Matco Tool business, and Aubree had just started working there. Ireland Kramer said Aubree had joined the National Guard and was looking to start college in the spring with an aim to learn what she needed to eventually be a combat medic.

Morrison said she joined the National Guard in large part at the urging of Kramer.

"I kind of wanted to do it and had been thinking about joining," Morrison said. "But with Aubree, having her do it, I figured I'd go ahead and we'd get our butts kicked together in basic (training). … She was just amazing to me — made me want to be around her."

Word of Kramer's death spread quickly on social media back home in Lafayette. Dustin Washington, who has a Dog 'n Suds location in Anderson, hired Kramer when he was working at the Lafayette location his father, Dan, owns.

Washington said Kramer came to Dog n' Suds the way so many others do; she had friends — Kelsey and Kaylee Simms, in this case — already on staff.

"They were a close-knit crew," Washington said. "If you're friends or family of people here, you're going to work for us."

Washington said he thought about just quietly cutting a check to help Kramer's family. But he said he figured drumming up a social media campaign — #bringaubreehome — for the GoFundMe effort and hosting a fundraiser at the place were Kramer used to work would be better.

"I really hope that on Wednesday," Washington said, "Aubree's looking down and sees police directing traffic for us like on opening day. … That won't make anything better about all this. But it would be something else. Just like Aubree was something else."

Bangert is a columnist with the Journal & Courier. Contact him at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.

What you can do

Dog n' Suds restaurant, 601 Sagamore Parkway S. in Lafayette, will donate $1 from every coney dog and root beer sold from 5-9 p.m. Wednesday to help raise money to cover transportation and funeral costs for Aubree Kramer, a Lafayette native who was killed in a car crash in Florida on Saturday.