Community all heart
Overwhelming support after family’s tragedy
FRIENDS, family and complete strangers are rallying around a husband and two young children who lost their wife and mother this month.
Family members say Kylee Krause, 46, took her own life after suffering for two years from severe depression and anxiety.
Her husband of nine years, Shanan Krause, and their two daughters, aged four and six, were left devastated, but a social media campaign to get them back on their feet has seen more than 100 volunteers come forward to help fix up and clean the family home.
More than $11,000 has also been raised within a week to help the family pay their bills.
Mr Krause said the family had struggled trying to keep up with working and looking after the house and yard as Kylee’s health deteriorated. He will now become a fulltime carer to his two children, one of whom has been diagnosed with autism.
Last Friday, family friend Melinda Tory launched the Love in Action xx Facebook page requesting help.
“It’s been an incredible project to pull together on,” Ms Tory said. “The Gold Coast is seen as a transient area. People haven’t grown up here. There is this certain stigma of no community here, but there is. I have had more than 700 messages of support since Saturday.”
Mr Krause, 43, said he had been overwhelmed by the community’s generosity, saying he had even seen a woman with an arm in a sling pitch in to get the house cleaned up. A father had brought his three sons along to help as well.
“I couldn’t have done this alone,” Mr Krause said.
“People are just coming off the street. We’re getting rooms painted, stuff replaced, it’s just phenomenal.”