Dell family wants to give local children chance to learn to fish

Outdoors

Karisma Dell was a compassionate, selfless and ambitious young woman who possessed a love for the outdoors, her family and friends, and for life itself, when her own life was cut short due to injuries that she suffered in a traffic accident in Bedford County at the age of 17 on Feb. 26, 2022.

Dell was behind the wheel of her car when her vehicle was hit head-on by a driver who was attempting to pass another car at a high rate of speed and veered into Dell's lane of traffic.

At the time of her death, Dell had the brightest of futures. She had graduated from Bedford Area High School a year early in 2021, and had secured full-time employment as an assembler in Bedford for the JLG Industries global manufacturing company.

Dell possessed an altruistic nature that reflected itself in her community service involvement as a member of the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls, a non-profit, Masonic-sponsored youth organization that empowers young women from the ages of 11 to 20 years old by teaching them the value of charity, teamwork, and unselfish service through local and state projects.

Dell also enjoyed volunteering alongside her father, Nate, at events that were held at Altoona's Jaffa Shrine Center, where she was always willing to lend a helping hand.

"If anybody needed something, she would give them the shirt off her back,'' Dell's sister, Andrea, said of Karisma.

Living now in Williamsburg, the Dell family -- which also includes Karisma's mother, Heather, and her brothers, Cecil and Randy, decided to start a charitable fund back in 2023 to honor Karisma's memory.

Over the past three years, the family has staged various fundraisers, including motorcycle rides, to raise money for grieving families, who, like the Dells, have lost a son or daughter.

The Karisma Dell Fund has turned the family's devastating heartbreak into a glimmer of hope for other families suffering such an unimaginable loss.

"We have done a memorial motorcycle ride for the last three years,'' said Andrea, who serves as the secretary/treasurer in charge of the Karisma Dell Fund. "It's a motorcycle ride of about 100 miles, and our whole family participates, along with anybody from the community who is interested.

"We just did our latest one in June, and 60 riders participated,'' Andrea said. "All the money raised goes to families who have lost children in a car accident through no fault of their own, to help with funeral expenses and things like that.''

According to Nate Dell, Karisma possessed a special gift for nurturing children, who naturally gravitated toward her at family and social functions.

Karisma also loved outdoor pursuits such as fishing, hunting, and riding four-wheelers, so the beneficiary of the next humanitarian venture of the Karisma Dell Fund -- a fishing event for the youngsters in the Gloria Gates Foundation's after-school program -- seemed like a natural fit.

The event will be held on Saturday, Sept. 26, at Canoe Creek State Park, and is open to all students in grades kindergarten through grade 6 who reside in the Altoona Area School District's low-income housing projects at both Evergreen Manors and Fairview Hills, and who attend the after-school programs there, as well as a third one at Altoona's Overflow Church, that are sponsored by the Gloria Gates Foundation.

The Foundation's after-school program provides a healthy daily snack, homework help, tutoring, and assistance with studying for the young schoolchildren, as well as instruction in financial literacy skills, educational enrichment activities, and career planning, plus trips to outdoor venues such as Prince Gallitzin State Park.

Public donations for the fishing event will go to benefit the students served by the Foundation, which was founded back in 1999 by Altoona physician Zane Gates to honor his late mother, whose guidance and encouragement played a vital role in his drive to graduate from both the pharmacy and medical school programs at the University of Pittsburgh and go on to establish a renowned medical career focusing on helping the poor.

"Karisma loved kids, and she loved fishing,'' Nate Dell said. "I work with a gentleman who knows Jess Brunner, the director at the Gates Foundation's after-school program, and he told me about all the good that the after-school program does for the kids. I went home, and talked it over with my family, and we decided to do something for these kids. I believe that a lot of these kids will enjoy fishing.''

So does Brunner, who was very receptive to the idea of the fishing event when Nate Dell contacted her about it.

"When he reached out to me about it and asked if our organization would be interested in it, I said absolutely,'' Brunner said. "Anything that gets the kids outdoors and doing something that they might otherwise not do ... I'm 100 percent on board for it.''

Brunner also expressed her deep gratitude to the Dell family for selecting the Foundation's after-school program as a Karisma Dell Fund beneficiary.

"The Gloria Gates Memorial Foundation is so very thankful to the Karisma Dell Fund for picking us and choosing us,'' Brunner said. "We're starting our 27th year as an organization, and if it weren't for that type of community networking, we truthfully could not do what we do.''

The Dell family is seeking sponsors and donors to help make the inaugural event a success.

Donations of fishing supplies, fishing bait and tackle, door prizes, gift cards, food and beverages, bottled water, snacks and event supplies are all needed, as well as monetary donations to assist with expenses.

The contact person for donations is Andrea Dell, to whom checks payable to the Karisma Dell Memorial Fund can be sent before Sept. 12. Andrea Dell's mailing address is 411 Ridge Road, Williamsburg, Pa. 16693. She can be reached by phone at (814)-931-5354, and by email at andreadell85@gmail.com.

She will graciously accommodate providing a meeting place for those who want to drop off the fishing supplies and other gifts related to the event.

The pain of their immense loss will never go away, but the Dell family is doing its best to honor the memory of their cherished daughter and sister by doing what she would most desire -- helping others, particularly other families who are struggling with bereavement.

"The grief is so bad when you lose a kid -- it tears your heart out,'' Nate Dell said. "It never goes away. You just hide it better.

"As a family, we're still dealing with our own (grief), and we can't help other families with their grief, but we can help people in other ways, like financially, by raising funds to alleviate some of the stress that they shouldn't be worrying about.'