A Stoolie's Wife And 21-Month-Old Daughter Were Killed In A Car Accident Because Three Kids Were Allegedly Drag Racing. Lets Help Him Out
(Source)- Police say street racing led to the death of a mother and toddler struck by a vehicle while on Bayshore Boulevard. Three people are facing charges. According to Tampa Police, two cars were street racing down Bayshore Boulevard on Wednesday afternoon when one of the vehicles struck the mother who was pushing her child in a stroller near W. Knights Avenue in Tampa.
Tampa police say the mother, Jessica (Reisinger) Raubenolt, 24, and her 2-year-old child, Lillia Raubenolt, were sent to the hospital with serious injuries. Raubenolt, of Jeromesville, Ohio, died at the hospital on Wednesday. The infant, Lilia, sustained serious injuries but tragically passed away Thursday evening.
That story right there is a nightmare. An actual nightmare come to life. A Stoolie named Eric that I occasionally interact with on Twitter DM’d me a GoFundMe page for his fraternity brother that had just lost his wife and child. That’s where I first learned of the tragedy. I was laying next to my daughter Siena, who had just fallen asleep for the night, and I read about how Dave lost everything in his life because a couple of kids wanted to drag race. I don’t even know how you react to news like that. It has to be numbing. Your entire body must go into shock because I don’t think there is a way for your soul to take that kind of a blow and keep moving.
I tweeted out the GoFundMe link because Stoolies usually answer the bell when someone needs help. And sure enough they did. The GoFundMe’s number started going up along with the retweets of my tweet. Someone asked if my Venmo was open for donations, which it is (@TheClemReport), in case they wanted to send money that way and help Dave avoid any GoFundMe fees.
This was my first time doing an impromptu Venmo fundraiser with the Stoolies and they delivered as always. The tweet was barely on Twitter and I was getting alerts of payments to my Venmo. $1, $5, $10, $20 payments. People donated whatever they could do to help someone who just experienced an UNIMAGINABLE tragedy. As I am writing this, I am getting a buzz every 3 seconds from my phone because my email is blowing up with Venmo emails. I know I could turn them off, but it’s a reminder that despite all the shit that has been going on in this world, there are still a ton of great people looking to help others.
As I write this, the Venmo alone is closing in on $7500. The GoFundMe has eclipsed $64,000. I have changed both of those numbers multiple times since I started writing this blog last night because the Stoolies are that persistent.
I’ve always said that Stoolies are the meat and potatoes of Barstool’s success. The bloggers, podcasters, business people, and everyone else that cashes a check from here is just the plate. But Stoolies are the engine that will power this ship to the moon. Yeah the content we produce is hopefully unique, funny, and/or relatable. But without the Stoolies supporting us in all of our new ventures, whether in be a podcast, a radio network, a fighting promotion, or anything else, Barstool is nothing. And when it comes to picking each other up, Stoolies are second-to-none.
I still remember the moment I became a Stoolie in my mind. I had read Barstool a good amount for a while and obviously liked it. But it was still just a funny website to me. However when I saw the way everyone from Pres on down handled the fallout from the Boston Marathon bombing while also watching Big Cat slowly turn into an actual man hunter while kinda losing his mind was something I had never seen before. It galvanized me as a Stoolie. For the first time, Barstool was more than just a funny website. It was a community. Same goes for seeing how Barstool was a part of the Ice Bucket Challenge going viral and all the other fund raisers we have had over the years. We interact with each other on Twitter and meet up in real life. A lot of people talk about how Barstool gets them through some tough times by making them laugh, which is one of the best parts about this job. It can be a blog you read, a tweet someone wrote, or just something funny you saw on the 8 million different things we do. It doesn’t even have to be a Barstool employee that did it. Pres created a newspaper more than a decade ago and this crazy community of writers and readers has grown from it.
Dave Raubenolt is a part of that community and needs our help during a tragedy most of us will never be able to comprehend. He is Stoolie, a Delta Upsilon Brother, a Kent Grad, Cleveland fan, a person loved by his brothers and friends in college that wanted to open his own school in Ohio of flight. I don’t know what our money can do to help him in this awful time. But any way we can help out a man that has to bury his wife and child with donations seems like the least we can do for one of our own.
You can donate to the GoFundMe by clicking here.
VIVA