Assist the Barella Family in Their Time of Need

I am Heather Barella's sister. My siblings, Angela Broadbent and Eric Braunberger, and I, Jennifer Chacon, are creating this GoFundMe to help my brother-in-law, Chris Barella, afford a funeral for his wife and to help him continue to raise his boys.

Tragically, Thursday night, January 30th, around 11 pm, my sister Heather Braunberger Barella was unexpectedly taken from this world. While the details of the circumstances surrounding her death will be in the news for a long time, we want to help her family move on and have some support. Heather was such a lovely person; she was kind and generous and always willing to help others and lift others with her positive spirit and her bubbly personality! She was a loyal friend, an amazing mother, and had the biggest heart for her children. Heather and her husband were very involved in the community. Chris was a local volunteer firefighter for many years and ran a karate studio for youth. Heather and Chris have the biggest hearts and began fostering boys; they took the difficult cases, and most of the boys they fostered became their adopted sons. Heather loved her children fiercely; she was involved in homeschooling them, teaching them karate, and ensuring they had the best manners. Her sons have grown to be kind, well-mannered boys. She and Chris had such big hearts that aside from her two biological children, Ryan and Brandon, they adopted five more children: Gabe, Matt, Robby, Quinn, and Kai.

Heather's hobbies included reading, writing, scrapbooking and card making, and playing board games. She was a karate black belt as well. She always knew how to lift anyone's spirits by saying kind words or serving them in any capacity she was able to. Heather was a survivor of several heart attacks that left her with numbness on one side of her body. While she fought colon cancer and had other conditions that made her life very difficult and disabled her, she occasionally worked as a crossing guard and recess aide; she just loved kids. She was an avid animal lover and housed many dogs they also adopted over her lifetime. Currently, they have three dogs that are very loved.

She also loved to hike the great outdoors, attend festivals, and watch horror movies. She helped run her and her husband's karate studio and also had her own Color Me Nails business for a while.

Heather's life was snuffed out too soon and in such a terrible way. But her light expands and surrounds all of us. She will be dearly and heartbrokenly missed. But her example of love, positivity, and kindness will live on in all of our hearts and memories.

We are fundraising to help Chris Barella afford a funeral for his wife and to support him in raising their boys.