Signs of promise: Idle pursuit turns into seed money for Sulak scholarship plan

Some of the signs got a chuckle from passersby: “I never run with scissors. Those last two words were unnecessary.”

Some are poignant: “It’s not where you go in life, it’s who you have beside you that matters.”

“It depends on my mood for the day,” said Kristen Sulak, who made the dozens of signs laid out in a section of the Hilton Head Island High School parking lot. “You can totally tell. If I was in an upbeat mood, they’re funny. And there are some that are very serious.”

Then there’s this: “Any idiot can run, but it takes a special kind of idiot to run cross country.”

Perhaps a cross country runner — one of Grace Sulak’s teammates — will be one who receives a little college help from the money generated by sign sales.

The handcrafted signs were the hottest-selling item at the booth for the Amazing Grace Scholarship Fund, located almost squarely in the middle of the World’s Largest Yard Sale being held on the high school’s grounds.

The booth also displayed an array of soaps, candles and lotions fashioned by Grace’s older sister, along with handmade jewelry and other items. All proceeds go to the scholarship fund, which just filed its paperwork and plans to award its first stipends this spring.

“I think it’s been really received well,” said Heidi Hanson, Kristen’s partner and parent to both Grace and her twin sister Faith. “It’s something we can do to keep Grace’s legacy going.”

The River Ridge Academy eighth grader was killed May 7 in a hit-and-run accident along Interstate 26 in Calhoun County, as she and teammate Emma Dewey were returning from competing with Bluffton High’s track team at a region meet in Columbia.

Dewey’s mother, Andrea, was driving when their vehicle was clipped and run off the highway by a white pickup truck that sped up from behind. The Dewey vehicle struck a tree; the truck fled the scene and has not been located.

Anyone with information on the mystery truck can contact the S.C. Highway Patrol at 843-953-6010.

Though the idea of a scholarship fund had been raised as far back as last summer, it took time to move the process forward. Donations to a GoFundMe page was lying in wait, and Bluffton High set aside a portion of its proceeds from last August’s Bobcat Scorcher 5K for the fund.

With the help of the Lowcountry Community Foundation, the Amazing Grace fund is now established. Sulak and Hanson hope to give out a pair of $2,000 scholarships in May, but the numbers could change.

“As a parent who is going to be paying off a college, $2,000 is a good chunk. But so is $1,000,” Hanson said. “If we did $1,000 maybe we could give out four. So we haven’t really finalized that part yet.”

What is certain is that the first receipients will be Bluffton High student-athletes.

“She ran for them; she was a Bobcat,” Hanson said. “Then we’re going to open it up next year.”

Said Kristen Sulak: “I would love to see every school involved, not just (those in) Bluffton and Hilton Head. I would like to go to Jasper County. And to go to middle schools and be able to buy shoes for 20 kids and start a running club. That’s how Grace started running.”

Big ambitions, requiring a consistent funding stream. Which is where those signs enter the picture.

Kristen Sulak once owned a traveling bounce house operation, “but the girls were such a part of it,” she said. “It was entirely too difficult to continue doing that, so I wound up selling the business. For me, that marked the first time in my life, ever, that I have not worked.”

Around that time, too, she heard a saying that hit home — “Accept the good.”

“So I made that into a sign, just so I could look at it all the time as a reminder,” Sulak said. “Then I thought other people could use that, so I made a couple for other people in the same circumstance.”

With time on her hands, she kept making signs and giving them to friends.

“I didn’t know what to do with them. It was just something to do,” she said. “Then somebody said they wanted to pay for one and I said, ‘No, but you can give the money to the scholarship fund.’ And that’s how it became a way for us to fund the scholarships.”

Sulak and Hanson began Saturday with perhaps six dozen signs. Along with sales of soap, candles and other items, they went home with $2,148 for the fund – enough for one full scholarship.

“This just sort of started giving me a purpose,” Kristen Sulak said. “And right now all the money is going to scholarships, and that makes me feel good.”

This story was originally published March 25, 2017 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Signs of promise: Idle pursuit turns into seed money for Sulak scholarship plan."