Nearly 2 years after her death in Myanmar, this Cathedral alumna's legacy is changing lives

Though she's been gone for two years, there are traces of Kassie Braun throughout her family's home northeast of Indianapolis.

Photos of her overseas travels. Certificates of appreciation for contributions made in her name. Landry, the Labradoodle she gifted the family in 2015, pads around the home just behind Kassie's mother, Chalene Braun. 

The 20-year-old Cathedral High School graduate died in 2017 after falling nearly 40 feet during a study abroad trip to Myanmar. But she's still making a difference. Her family's nonprofit, Kassie Kares, is raising funds to support causes she was passionate about, like animal adoption and education — even helping to build schools in Nigeria.

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From noon to 6 p.m. on Aug. 18, Kassie Kares will host the Sip. Bark! Repeat. benefit at Daniel's Vineyard in McCordsville, with the benefits supporting local humane societies, scholarships and the school's construction.

"I think when people get to see what Kassie was like, that's where I am hopeful," her mother, Chalene Braun, told IndyStar on a recent afternoon. "I know that she wanted to say, 'Come with me. Let's do this together.'"

Losing Kassie

The second of four children, Kassie had a vibrant personality and a passion for helping others that she developed as a student participating in philanthropic projects at Cathedral High School.

"When she walked in, she took over the room," Chalene Braun said. "Not only was she the bright light in a room, but she was the personality that everybody wanted to see and talk to, and she always made everybody feel very important when she spoke to you and listened to you."

She enrolled at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, to study marketing and communications. She worked as a campus leader and mentor, worked with Inside Books Project, which provides books to prison inmates and studied abroad in Milan her sophomore year. She had dreams of working in communications with a global philanthropy.

In November of 2017, the college junior was nearing the middle of an 11-country, 106-day service-learning trip with Semester At Sea. During her last phone call with her mother, Kassie said she'd just had "the best day ever."

A few hours later, the unthinkable happened.

While visiting Bagan, Myanmar, Kassie and several others had climbed the steps to the top of an ancient pagoda to take pictures at sunset. When it was Kassie's turn to have her photo taken, the bricks at her feet gave way, sending her tumbling.

As she bled from her nose, mouth and ears, Kassie's friends called for help and took their shirts off to wrap her head.

"And we quickly learned that that baby country, that developing country is so undeveloped, that what we'd consider a hospital was nothing more than a clinic with a dirt floor and some cotton swabs and latex gloves," Chalene Braun said. "And that's where she was taken until they regrouped."

The nearest help was eight to 10 hours away, where the ship was docked. So, first responders attempted to drive four hours to Mandalay, Myanmar, where the goal was to airlift her to Thailand.

But Kassie died 45 minutes into the drive.

"Of course, you know, she needed a trauma center, she needed a hospital," she said. "She needed access to medical care. And there just wasn't any."

Giving back

Kassie had a passion for helping others, and her family's nonprofit, Kassie Kares, is making sure her life continues to have an impact.

The nonprofit raises funds to benefit local animal shelters, provide tuition assistance to Cathedral High School students and study abroad scholarships to students at St. Edward's. But one of its biggest commitments — and potentially its most impactful — is to raise funds to help The Rev. JohnBosco Ikemeh establish schools in Abakaliki, Nigeria.

The priest has known the Braun family for years, having met them when he first came to the U.S. and settled in Pennsylvania. He baptized the Braun children, referring affectionately to Kassie as his daughter.

Ikemeh, who now lives in South Carolina, told IndyStar he had the idea to build schools in Abakaliki after visiting a friend who lived there and noticing the number of children he saw hawking items on the street or begging for money.

"For the first time in my adult life, I saw so many children on the street ... and it took me back to my growing up," he said. 

Education comes at a price in Nigeria, and many families cannot afford to send their children to school, creating a cycle of poverty in an underdeveloped nation. To pay for his own education, Ikemeh, too, hawked items and worked various jobs.

So, in 2011, he began buying land, and over the next two years amassed 10 acres on which he planned to build schools. In 2014, he founded the African Education Outreach with the goal of helping provide youths with the education and skills they need to better their lives.

But there was one problem: For various reasons, Nigerian officials repeatedly nixed name proposals for the project. But one night after Kassie's death, he awoke in the middle of the night with an epiphany: Name the schools in her honor. 

The Kassie Braun Memorial Schools will open its first two classes in September, with the goal of constructing additional classrooms and dormitories to facilitate enrollment from across the region.

The schools will be an embodiment of all the kindness Kassie put into the world.

"Kassie will be teaching not just a classroom, but she will be teaching in a whole school," Ikemeh said. "Her spirit will live on in this school, and the spirituality of this school is going to be a spirituality of giving back, a spirituality of service, the spirituality of recognizing every individual. Because that's how she was."

Sip. Bark! Repeat.

To honor Kassie's memory, the family is inviting friends and the public to join them for an afternoon of music, food and drinks at Daniel's Vineyard in McCordsville, where Kassie had worked as an intern.

The event, called Sip. Bark! Repeat., benefits the Humane Society for Hamilton County and the Indiana Canine Assistance Network, which trains and places assistance animals. The goal is also to connect attendees with volunteer opportunities and raise funds to continue construction of the Kassie Braun Memorial Schools.

The event is now in its second year — the first was organized within six months of Kassie's death. It's not been easy to work through their grief, Chalene Braun said, but it's something that the family felt driven to do. 

She's just a mom, she said, and they're just a family that would so much rather have Kassie here with them. But in her absence, they'll do the things Kassie would have done if she'd only had time.

Chalene Braun started to explain: "There's this Christian belief that says..."

But the sentence came to a halt and the air hung heavy as her voice crumbled.

"There's a promise," she continued, her voice faltering as she tried to finish the sentence. "And the promise says that one day we will be reunited, you know?

"And so ... if there's that much chance that I can actually see my daughter again — that I will be reunited with her — then this is all worth it." 

If you go

What: Sip. Bark! Repeat. fundraiser to benefit Kassie Kares, which benefits several Indy-area animal rescue organizations, tuition assistance at Cathedral High School and St. Edwards University and supports the construction of Kassie Braun Memorial Schools in Nigeria.

When: Noon-6 p.m., Aug. 18.

Where: Daniel's Vineyard, 9061 N. 700 W., McCordsville.

Details: Tickets are $10 during pre-sale and $15 at the door. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit shop.danielsvineyard.com or kassiekares.org.

Call IndyStar reporter Holly Hays at 317-444-6156. Follow her on Twitter: @hollyvhays.