Emma Bennetts-Holmes, the daughter of Good Health Will founder Heather Bennetts, died of acute myeloid leukemia on the evening of Oct. 29, in her parents’ arms in their home in Fort Collins. She was 23.
Bennetts-Holmes was a constant at Good Health Will, the medical equipment swapping nonprofit that Bennetts was inspired to found as a result of the difficulties she encountered while serving as a caretaker for her daughter. Bennetts and her daughter were both a constant presence at the nonprofit until Bennetts-Holmes began to show signs of illness, and her mother stepped down from the nonprofit in 2018. Prior to that time, Emma was a constant presence, bearing an infectious smile while her mother handled pickups and deliveries, manned the shop and spoke with visitors in desperate need of medical equipment.
Bennetts founded the nonprofit after networking with other parents of children with special needs who would share medical equipment, ranging from wheelchairs to colostomy bags, among themselves.
Often, she said, such equipment was bound for the garbage, and she took it upon herself to gather cast off materials in hopes of finding someone who could use it.
“Through Emma’s special friends and doing things with her, you know, we had that network,” she said. “People wouldn’t know what to do with stuff, so we’d rescue it and stash it in the basement or the garage. It got to the point where it completely overtook the double car garage and big basement. So I had to network better. We started getting stuff for adults, and my crowd is special needs kids.”
Heather Bennetts stands in her daughter Emma Holmes’ bedroom, Friday at her home in Fort Collins. Emma, who was a fixture at Good Health Will, the nonprofit her mother founded, died of luekemia last month. The hospital bed in her room is one of many items they bought at Good Health Will to help Emma. (Jenny Sparks/Loveland Reporter-Herald)The effort eventually grew into a thriving nonprofit with brick and mortar stores, first in Loveland and then a satellite store in Greeley, that function essentially as thrift stores for used medical equipment, receiving donations of unneeded items and reselling them for a small fraction of the market price to those in need.
Her life was a rich one, traveling with her mother and stepfather, Steven Bennetts, on his business to places such as Japan and Taiwan.
An engineer, Bennetts had constructed an enormous ceiling lift throughout the family’s home so that his stepdaughter could move throughout the house in a harness, rather than have to be carried from place to place, and built a specialty walking device that could be collapsed into a suitcase so that she could move around when the family left for distant locales.
“We’re family, so we wanted to be together,” he said, explaining why he went to so much effort to help his stepdaughter travel the world at his side. “We also wanted the enrichment of her life as much as we could. That’s a lesson that Heather taught me.”
Throughout Bennetts’ time running Good Health Will, her daughter was there.
The legacy of the nonprofit is Bennetts-Holmes legacy, founded out of a need to help her thrive and continued out of a desire to help others find the same support she received.
Her presence was more than a novelty.
“People don’t come to Good Health Will for kicks,” Bennetts said, adding that many of the clients the nonprofit sees are dealing with significant trauma and misfortune.
Once, while Bennetts was loading donations into the back of the store in Loveland, a man approached her.
He told her that his child was “just like her,” gesturing to Bennetts-Holmes, and that it was his fault.
The man went on to explain that he had taken his young son for a ride on an ATV when they had gone over a larger-than-expected hill, resulting in a crash. The accident had rendered the child significantly disabled, and in Bennetts’ telling, the man kept repeating that “he didn’t mean to,” and that his son was now “just like her,” again gesturing to the young girl in the push chair, listening to music with a smile on her face.
“Is she really happy?” he finally asked.
“Yeah, she is,” Bennetts remembered saying. “She has a really good life.”
Heather Bennetts holds her daughter Emma Bennetts-Holmes outside their home in 2012 while gathering medical supplies for the nonprofit they founded. (Heather Bennetts – Courtesy photo)In their daughter’s memory, the Bennetts have created a grant, “The Emma Grant,” in honor of Good Health Will’s “first client.”
The grant, offered once or twice a month, will provide up to $250 for anyone in need of financial help to afford medical supplies.
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