Editor, Gazette-Journal:

On behalf of Machelle and James Walker, I would like to express our gratitude to the citizens and businesses of Gloucester County. As many of you know, we held a fundraiser in their daughter’s name this past weekend at Botetourt Elementary. We had an amazing turnout and came real close to our goal.

I am truly touched by the generosity of the people in this county in our efforts to help the family in a small way by easing some of the financial burden of their loss. I have lived here now for six years and been driving a school bus for the school system for the same six years. Although the passing of Rhenae has broken our hearts, I have been overwhelmed by the support of everyone in our efforts from our fellow bus drivers and the employees of the school system who donated their belongings for our sale. Thank you to our horse friends at Mystic Stables and Becky Visner, one of our fellow drivers, for bringing their horses out for the kids to ride. Gloucester County has been an awesome place to live.

I would like to thank the following businesses that provided donations for us to raffle: The Gloucester Home Depot, Auto Max of Gloucester, Williamsburg Auctions, Super Cuts, Conscientious Carpet Care, Chuck’s Carpet Cleaning, Tractor Supply, AirHeads, Smith’s Florist, Silver Box, GBS Skate Shop, Vashti’s, Emily’s, Naturals, Kelsick Gardens, Village Lanes, Bridgewater Salon, Pam Barnett, Traci Keller, Trailer World, Look Sign Shop, Sunrise Donuts, Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, Trudy’s and B&S Refuse all provided the necessities to make our day a success. I would like to send a special thank you to WXGM 99.1 and the Gazette-Journal for their help with the advertising for our fundraiser. We absolutely needed their promotional assistance to get the word out to our neighbors and friends.

I would like to send a great big shout out to my fellow Gloucester County school bus drivers who worked our fundraiser. High five! Without you, this event couldn’t have happened. You all worked so very, very hard and there are no words to express my gratitude to you for our success and I think you were all great!

Diana Moeller

Gloucester, Va.