Curling community comes together to support family of Aly Jenkins

The Saskatchewan curling community is stepping up to support the family of Aly Jenkins after she passed away unexpectedly while giving birth to her third child on Sunday.

“Our thoughts are certainly with her family, her friends and teammates and we wish them all the best at this difficult time,” said Ashley Howard, executive director of CurlSask.

“Our whole organization is really devastated to hear the news. I’m very overwhelmed by the support from all of our athletes, our curling clubs, our members in trying to support the Jenkins family as much as possible.”

Howard says both the curling community and Jenkins’ home community of Warman have come together to help her husband and three kids in their time of need.

“We really feel it’s our role to try and help our members as well as Aly’s former teammates and just do whatever we can to help the family through the difficult time,” she said.

“They have so many other things to focus on at this point and the support from her home community has been amazing and you know meal schedules put together and fundraising activities from some of the businesses in her hometown, so it’s been a really impressive reaction from our community trying to help in some small way.”

Nourish natural Health Food Store in Warman is one of the businesses doing its part to help. The store is donating the proceeds from its coffee sales this week to the Jenkins Family GoFundMe page.

The owner, Jocelyn Redpath, said the store wanted to do anything it could to help.

The GoFundMe page is currently at more than $114,000.

Jenkins’ family will be holding a celebration of her life on Sunday at the Brian King Centre in Warman. The ceremony is at 2 p.m. and is open to the public.