COMBINED LOCKS (NBC 26) — In Kimberly and Combined Locks, community members are still grieving the recent loss of nine-year-old Mackenzie Van Eperen.
But through the grief, a friend of the family is sharing her creative way to honor Mackenzie's memory.
“There's no right or wrong way to do this. We just hope that people share in this and can find healing in it,” said Ashley Milhaupt.
Milhaupt paints a rock with a coat of black paint, and once it's dry, she begins adding colors. Dots, shapes, words... but always the same name.
What she makes is inspired by a craft called "Hide and Seek Rocks."
“I've done Hide and Seek Rocks with my kids before; you'll see them around. People do like ladybugs or paintings of a mural or flowers. Just tiny little stones, big stones, and there'll be out in the community," Milhaupt said.
This time, her project isn't just for fun. This time, she is painting a memorial.
“I thought, 'we had to have something special that tied Mackenzie to it.' And so, I came up with the idea of calling them her 'Memory Stones,'” Milhaupt explained.
Van Eperen was a student at Janssen Elementary School. She was killed on the first day of her summer break after third grade.
“My daughter was in the same grade, and we had interactions with Mackenzie throughout the school years, and then when we joined the Girl Scouts troop we had even more,” Milhaupt said.
Losing Mackenzie was hard for the entire community. She was described by many as a bright and energetic young girl. It was Milhaupt's hope when she started the project that it could be part of the healing process for everyone.
“Every time somebody finds a rock, it's a memory of Mackenzie still with us. You can find them if you just look,” said Milhaupt.
It all began with a social media post to a group of moms from Mackenzie's Girl Scout Troop. After that, the idea spread, and a collection of other moms, peers, and community members came together to make the stones and share memories as they painted.
“She did softball, so some of them had softballs. She loved reading, so somebody did a book. She was involved in Girls on the Run, so somebody did a stick figure of somebody running," said Milhaupt. "And then they got to talking about how they felt when they found out what had happened and that this was their friend and neighbor and team member and troop member, and just them sharing that and knowing that they all had a fairly similar response and that they weren't in it alone — I think was really helpful for them in their healing process.”
The group decided that the best color to represent Mackenzie was a rainbow since she was known to frequently change her favorite color.
The effort to make these stones and spread them around is not over. And the reach grows — some stones have already made it to parks in Neenah and a location in Menasha.
"My daughter — when I asked if this was something she'd want to do before we opened it up to the public, I said 'you know, if we're going to do this, you have to make sure you have a spot in mind where you want to put it. It's going to be meaningful,'" Milhaupt recalled. "She thought overnight, and the next morning she came out of her bedroom and the first thing she said was, 'I know where I want to put my rock.' And I said, 'okay, where do you want to put it?" And she said, 'I want to put it at Waverly Beach because there's so many people that go there, that they'll find it and pass it on, and her memory will stay alive forever.'"
The fact that the idea caught on means the world to Milhaupt.
"I'd love to see other people get involved, even if they didn't know Mackenzie, to help keep her with us," she said.
So, if you see a rock with "Kenzi" written on it in bright or colorful letters... you are helping to keep her memory alive. And you are invited to contribute to the growing effort if you are so moved.
If arts and crafts is not your inclination, but you still wish to support the Van Eperen family through their grief, there are also many donation efforts in place.
A meal train donation page is available, as well as a site for shirts, hoodies, and tank tops in Mackenzie's honor. The profits from that page go toward Mackenzie's memorial fund and donation boxes have been placed around town.
Another way to help will be by donating books to the Kimberly Village Public Library. They will go toward a free book library her loved ones want to build at Van Zeeland park in her honor to help share her love of reading. Updated dates and information will be posted on Mackenzie's memorial page on Facebook.
