The Community Shows Their Support for Delaney Rothgeb

On Friday, September 18th, Delaney Rothgeb, a senior at Mount Vernon High School, was in a serious car accident. She was flown to Grant Hospital in Columbus where she is still held.

Delaney enjoys playing volleyball for her high school and also plays club volleyball. In the midst of her last ever school ball season, her teammates have been missing her on the court the past couple weeks. Her volleyball team has been playing in shirts to show their support.

The community has shown their support for Delaney (nickname D) in many ways. Shirts have been sold which say “Fight For 3”. Also people at schools and other places have been wearing purple (Delaney’s favorite color) in support of her. Teams all over Licking and Knox county have been showing support for her. A small portion of these teams include the Granville soccer and volleyball teams who wore shirts during their games and practices in support of her. The Heath High School cheerleaders wore purple ribbons in their hair for Delaney on Saturday, October 10th. Also, the Denison girl’s volleyball team hung up posters in their gym saying, “Fight for 03”. Further, the Mount Vernon cheer team wore purple ribbons on their shoes at the football game on Friday, October 2.

In an attempt to show support and raise money for medical expenses besides selling shirts there's been other ways; a shake place in Mount Vernon called Eastend is giving $1 to Delaney’s family for each shake bought on Friday, Oct. 9. Also, the Pursel family raised money for Delaney and her family at a golf outing held for her.

As a rally organization, in early October the courthouse in downtown Newark was lit up purple for Delaney and has been lit every night since. Also, the bridge in Mount Vernon is lit up every night purple for Delaney.

On a facebook page called “Prayers for Delaney” an update from Didi (Delaney’s mom) said that hopefully next week Delaney will be moved from Grant to the inpatient rehab at Children’s if she continues to make improvements.

True to tradition, the support the community has shown is amazing. Delaney’s mom, Didi, asks that everyone spreads the word about Delaney to people all over the world so they can also pray for her. You can find updates on Delaney on the Facebook page mentioned above. Although the support and prayers for Delaney must be overwhelming for the family, we need to continue to support her and her family during this long journey/fight.