Benefactor refuses to quit scrambling to help children of slain single mom

It started when Hollie Taylor picked up the newspaper. She opened a section, scanned the headlines. A story caught her eye.

"Police seek 22-year-old North Las Vegas man in shooting death of young mother," the headline announced.

It was May 20, 2003. That young mother, 26-year-old Jessica Korschinowski, was killed two days earlier after a bullet fired outside her West Cartier Avenue apartment traveled through the wall and struck her in the chest. It was one of 10 shots fired in an altercation involving her boyfriend and another man, who was eventually tried but acquitted of murder and attempted murder charges. According to one report, Korschinowski was shot while protecting her infant child.

As a single mother, Taylor immediately thought of the stranger's children. There were four in all.

Who would care for them? How would they survive?

Instead of turning the page and going on with her day, she contacted her supervisors at Rhodes Ranch Golf Club and asked if it might be possible to hold a fundraiser, a tournament perhaps, to help the stranger's children. Thus began a journey that continues on Thursday with the seventh annual Benefit for Jessica's Children at the Sunrise Vista Golf Course (Information: 882-3809.)

It's not as if Taylor, an agent for Specialists Real Estate, doesn't have enough challenges in her working life. Real estate prices have tanked and the mortgage crisis has homeowners and homebuyers in a quandary. She also specializes in placing locals in low-cost government housing and is a family advocate for the valley's Head Start program.

The recession has hampered elaborate charitable organizations outfitted with professional fundraisers. It would be entirely understandable if Taylor checked the economic horizon and took the year off.

No one would blame her. She deserves the rest.

And, really, given all those challenges, what hope does one person have of persuading people to help care for Jessica's children -- Destany, Dominique, Derek, and Dalton?

Taylor answers that question with a question: Knowing the obstacles those little ones face, how can she not try?

That's why I caught her out of breath on Tuesday, scrambling to solicit donations for the tournament and attempting to sign up at least a few more players. Last year the tournament had 36 teams. This year, it's just 10 so far.

But she refuses to quit.

Her standards are wide open.

"Anyone who is willing to give, I show up and I accept," she says between trips across the valley. "I never met Jessica in my life. I felt connected because I am a single mother myself. My thought was, 'Who would do this for me if this happened to me? Would someone do this for me if I was murdered?' That's where it came from."

These days the children live with their grandparents. The kids and their caretakers attend the golf tournament each year to say thanks and remind those participants whom their donations benefit.

Truth told, Taylor's efforts only begin when the tournament ends. She has developed friendships with the children and watches them on many weekends. They go to movies and ballgames. She helps them participate in school activities and sign up for football leagues.

"I'll do anything to be a positive influence in their lives," she says. That includes taking the kids to church at Remnant Ministries, where Pastor Randall Cunningham, the ex-UNLV and NFL great, knows a few things about football leagues.

"I try to always remember what it would be like to walk a day in someone else's shoes," Taylor says. "I've never really had the ability to help them out financially, so I became their voice, basically. I went out to others, who opened their checkbooks and their hearts."

When I tell her the direction I think my story is going, Taylor hesitates. She would much rather have a donation for the children than a pat on the back.

"I always say my biggest reward will come when the children are adults and remember this lady who stood up for them when they were kids," she says. "I know. The kids know. That's all that matters to me."

As long as Hollie Taylor is able, and other strangers are willing to step up, Jessica's children will be reminded that their lives matter.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.