Living Like Rylee. All In. Full Heart.
A Tribute to the Rylee Grace Foundation from Doug Van Order, Tier One
Some moments change the way you see everything. Family. Purpose. What it really means to live with heart. Supporting the Rylee Grace Foundation has been one of those moments for me.
I never got to meet Rylee in person. But through Mike and Michelle, through her story, through her amazing sister Reese, and through the legacy she left on this world, I feel like I’ve come to know a young woman whose impact far outweighs her years. She embodied everything we hope our kids will grow up to be. Kind, joyful, courageous, full of a love that radiated into everyone around her. She wasn’t just a bright light in her family’s life. She was a spark that ignited change in her school, amongst her friends, her community, and now, through this foundation, far beyond.
What moves me most is that even in the face of unthinkable challenge, treatments no child should ever endure, moments that would break the strongest of adults, Rylee never stopped fighting. And she never stopped loving. The strength she showed, the grace she carried, the joy she still chose to bring into the world. That’s the kind of legacy that deserves to be lived forward.
Every year, I honor her life by doing a cannonball into my freezing pool. It’s a small gesture, but it reminds me of who she was. Free-spirited, fearless, fully alive. Mike calls it a “CANNONBALL into life,” and I couldn’t agree more. Rylee lived that way naturally, and the rest of us have to choose it. That’s what the foundation is about. Choosing to honor her spirit by helping families who are fighting the battles she fought, wrapping them in the support, compassion, and strength she showed every day.
I support the Rylee Grace Foundation because it stands for love in action. It stands for families who need more than hope. They need real help, real resources, real people walking beside them. And it stands for a young girl who taught the world, in just sixteen years, what it means to live with purpose.
If you’re reading this, know that your support matters more than you may ever realize. You’re not just donating to a cause. You’re joining a community built on the legacy of an incredible young girl who changed lives simply by being herself.
Every time I take that icy cannonball, I do it for Rylee. For her strength, her courage, her joy. And for every family fighting the fight she fought with so much heart.
Life is too short. CANNONBALL!