KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Friends and family of Jamie Frecks, 26, gathered for a memorial bike ride fundraiser on Saturday. It will help pay for medical and funeral expenses.
Feeling the pain of Frecks’ parents and her fiancee Eric, their friends and family held what they hope will be an annual event — The Jamie Frecks Memorial Ride.
Relative say the funds collected Saturday will help her parents and Frecks’ fiancee offset mounting bills.
“Our main goal right now is to raise money to help with funeral costs. Jamie has a hospital bill that she left behind and we also want to make sure Emma is taken care of,” said Rebecca Bruns, Frecks’ sister-in-law
Bruns said she also wants to make sure Frecks’ two-month-old daughter Emma knows her mother was a wonderful woman.
“I wanted to make sure she is remembered. She loved to help people. She loved kids. She wanted to be a teacher, an art teacher,” she said.
Bruns said Frecks also loved poetry and one line of the poem that was featured on t-shirts reads, “When I die my soul will be set free. Be reunited with loved ones and be an angel to the ones I left behind.”
Her family said the poems give them comfort. They also believe what helps Frecks’ fiancee cope with his grief is the bundle of joy that she left behind.
“I think Emma is what’s really keeping him going right now having her there and taking care of her and that’s keeping Jamie alive inside him too, I think,” Robert Hyatte, a family friend, told FOX 4 News.
Relatives said hosting events like this one will keep Frecks memory alive and they said it may also serve as a reminder for party bus owners to make sure they’re vehicles are safe.
“It hurt so bad. I just can’t imagine losing a girlfriend like that or a fiancee like that or anybody like that it’s unheard of,” Hyatte said.
Frecks’ family and friends said they’re in the process of setting up a scholarship fund at her high school to help an aspiring artist or teacher fulfill their dreams.
Frecks’ family filed a wrongful death lawsuit earlier this month. It names the owner of the party bus known as “Midnight Express,” three operators and the driver.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said the company did not have an operating number and the bus had not undergone state or federal inspections.
