Giving back while living mom’s dreams

Jeff Benson

When the Daily Pilot first published a story on Heather McKay and her

sisters in 1993, Heather was a 9-year-old running in the Race for the

Cure with her 42-year-old mother, Diane. Diane McKay was first

diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989.

“I’m racing for my mommy’s life,” Heather said 11 years ago, when

she was an Anderson Elementary School fourth-grader. “I help her and

try to make her feel good. I love my mommy. I hope she gets better.”

McKay had just come home from the hospital several months before,

and her two other daughters showed her the same loving attention that

Heather did. Older sister Kristy, then 11, stayed home from school

the next day to bake her mom a cake. And little Kimberly, only 7,

curled up next to her like a cat.

Heather doesn’t remember the story and she vaguely remembers the

race, but she definitely recalls the giving spirit her mom instilled

in her and her sisters. Diane McKay died of breast cancer in 2001.

The McKay girls, now women of 22, 20 and 18, were obviously shaken

by the sudden loss of their mother, but they never lost hope. They’ve

since put in countless hours at Human Options’ Second Step Program

for battered women in Irvine, at Costa Mesa-based shelter Share Our

Selves and at Orangewood Children’s Home, and they contributed many

more hours when McKay was still alive.

McKay hoped to spark a love for volunteerism in her daughters and

looked forward to seeing each of them presented as debutantes -- the

culmination of a six-year National Charity League program that allows

mothers and daughters to complete volunteer service through numerous

Costa Mesa and Newport Beach charities.

One of her wishes was granted in 2000, when Kristy was presented

at the Debutante Ball, sponsored by the National Charity League. “We

joined in seventh grade,” Heather said, referring to the Charity

League program. “Each year, there’s a requirement of community

service hours to complete -- I think around 20. We had meetings every

month with different speakers that come in. Sometimes they were

etiquette or self-defense people. We worked at a thrift shop and

helped out around the community.”

McKay’s husband and the girls’ father, Ken McKay, stepped in to

make sure the girls stayed in the National Charity League after their

mother’s death, so they could finish their remaining years in the

program while they attended Corona del Mar High School.

“A lot of people would just move on and continue with their

lives,” Ken McKay said. “I didn’t provide near the effort their mom

put in. I just encouraged them to do it if they wanted to and made

sure the league got paid.”

The three daughters fulfilled their mother’s dreams last month

when Kimberly, the youngest daughter, was presented at the National

Charity League’s Debutante Ball -- in a wedding dress, no less.

Wedding dresses and formal attire are league traditions.

“Our mom’s so encouraging and got us started in the program,”

Kimberly said. “She wanted us to finish what we started and whatnot.”

Now they’re three separate women with three separate career paths.

The family witnessed Kristy’s graduation from the University of

Arizona’s business program on Friday. Heather studies communications

at UC Santa Barbara, and Kimberly is on the swim team at

Loyola-Marymount University.

“I’m extremely proud,” Ken McKay said. “Everybody’s managed to

move on and do well. You have to live the best life you can, under

any circumstances. That’s the goal for everybody, and that’s what

we’re trying to do.”