People from across the country reached out — dancers, parents, strangers — all touched by Hailey’s story.
At first, April and Trey could barely speak.
But amid the grief, they found a quiet resolve.
Hailey’s story, they realized, couldn’t end here.
Her light was too powerful to fade.
So they decided to let it shine — forever.
In 2023, they created The Shine Like Hailey Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading kindness, supporting young dancers, and making parades safer for everyone.
The name came naturally.
“Hailey always told her friends to ‘shine bright,’” her mom recalled. “She wanted everyone to feel special.”
Through the foundation, April and Trey began offering dance scholarships to children who dreamed of dancing but couldn’t afford lessons.
They started “Shine Days,” where communities would come together to perform acts of love in Hailey’s honor: visiting nursing homes, feeding the hungry, helping shelters, writing letters of encouragement to hospital patients.
And they didn’t stop there.
Hailey’s parents also worked with city officials to push for parade safety reforms — stronger rules for vehicle maintenance, stricter supervision, and better emergency training — so that no family would ever have to experience the same heartbreak again.
Each year, on November 19th, friends and family gather to celebrate Hailey’s life.
They wear her favorite color — yellow — and release balloons into the sky.
They share stories, photos, laughter, and tears.
They dance, just as she loved to do.
In every child who receives a scholarship, Hailey dances again.
In every act of kindness, she smiles again.
In every effort to make the world safer and kinder, her spirit shines brighter.
One mother who attended a Shine Day event later wrote, “My daughter didn’t know Hailey, but after hearing her story, she spent all weekend baking cookies to deliver to our neighbors. She said, ‘I just want to make someone smile like Hailey would have.’”
That’s what her parents wanted — not for the world to remember the accident, but to remember the love.
They often say that Hailey lived eleven beautiful years — years that continue to echo in every good deed inspired by her name.
Her room remains much the same as it was that morning — her dance shoes neatly placed by the bed, her drawings taped to the wall, her favorite stuffed animal waiting.
Sometimes, April sits there quietly, sunlight streaming through the window, and she swears she can still hear her daughter humming.
When she closes her eyes, she imagines Hailey dancing — spinning, leaping, twirling under a sky full of light.
Not gone.
Just shining somewhere else.
