New nonprofit to help families with funeral and cremation costs

TRIVOLI (25News Now) - More than four years after Metamora’s Taylor Rudd died in a car crash in 2019, her family is starting a nonprofit that will soon help families whose children die with funeral and cremation costs.

The Taylor Rudd’s Saving Grace Foundation will start accepting applications in the coming months.

If a family is selected, $2,500 would go directly to the funeral home in memory of their child. The only requirement for applying is that families have children who died at age 26 or younger.

Taylor Rudd’s funeral cost $17,500. Her parents Troy Rudd and Deanna Zimmerman said the cost is one of the reasons they started the foundation.

“After this long, it’s still every day you feel that pain of that loss,” Troy said.

“We just wanted to prevent a family from getting a monthly bill in the mail saying you still have an expense from their funeral,” Deanna said. “That’s just a constant reminder.”

Taylor was a state champion softball player for Metamora Township High School in 2010, volunteered at several organizations and was working toward her dream of becoming a cosmetologist before she died.

“Losing a father or a mother is one thing. That’s like natural,” Troy said. “That’s supposed to happen, but losing a child is not. We want to take this and run with it and bless people in their worst times.”

A fundraiser will be held at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 19th at the Par-A-Dice Hotel Casino in East Peoria. Tickets can be purchased online or at the door.

Taylor’s parents say it’s going to be bittersweet helping families, but they believe it’s needed.

“She’s going to be just ecstatic of what we’re doing,” Troy said.

“She went around, volunteered, fundraised, did things like that,” Zimmerman said. “It was a very big part of her life. So, she would expect no less than for us to step up and do something.”

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