Now Kelly Brester is famous!!!!!

[wouldntmind]

After reading the article below, I recognized the name. Then I remember she was on this site a lot as Cindy Williams' No. 1 fan. Well, Kelly Brester is featured in the newspaper this week. The paper had tons of pictures of her and it took up a WHOLE two pages. Way to go, Kelly!!! You mean people should leave her alone.

By Lisa Patterson
Daily World writer

Aberdeen is a small enough town that, if you pay attention, you might start to recognize random faces of strangers. Yet it’s just big enough for people to go on with their lives without getting to know the familiar folks they often encounter.

One of them might be Kelly Brester.

She has greeted customers with a genuine smile as a courtesy clerk at Safeway for 10 years. She believes she has met most everybody in town — at least the ones who shop for groceries at her store.

Chances are she’s made sure your Wonder Bread didn’t get squashed and your eggs stayed safe and sound. She may have packed groceries in your car, wiped up something your child spilled on aisle 10 or asked very politely if you’d prefer “paper or plastic?"

“She knows an awful lot of people," said Dave Steele, the store manager.

“She’s like an ambassador, there on the front end for us, the forefront. Her wonderful service is one of her strengths. People like Kelly an awful lot. They will come up to me and say, ‘You know, you have a gem there.’ ”

That’s a great compliment for Steele, too. He hired Brester 10 years ago, remembering she was “really nervous” at the interview. As she has always been, her mother, Mary Fassnacht, was right by her side for support. The two are a team in the game of life, said Brester, who was born developmentally disabled.

Interested in answers
On a recent morning at the store, Brester cheerfully asked a customer, “How are you today ma’am?”

It isn’t just an act. When Brester asks, she is genuinely interested in people’s answers. But not all are as chatty as she is.

Brester packed the woman’s ham and box of cereal in a bag as the woman turned in her Safeway Club Card to receive a discount. She barely looked at Brester, grabbed her bags and left.

It didn’t stop Brester from finishing the one-sided conversation with a good-hearted, “Goodbye!”

Onto the next.

This was a man with bloodshot-eyes, buying four giant jugs of wine and a box of Twinkies. Unlike some people, Brester doesn’t raise an eyebrow at the man’s odd combination of purchases. She just packs groceries without judging the items. She offers more smiles and packs the items with speed and care.

It seems like her work never ends. There's always someone in line. Grocery carts to retrieve from the rainy parking lot. Prices to check. People to greet. A checker said recently, “The lines don’t go slow when Kelly is working.”
“I take my job very seriously," Brester said. "Very seriously."

To Brester, it’s more than just a job, it’s one of the many things in her life that define who she is. People such as Dolores Erak of Aberdeen value that. On a recent shopping trip she asked Brester how her Christmas was. Brester’s face lit up, as she talked about the Scooby-Doo gifts she got.

“She’s a classy little gal,” Erak said. “We often compare notes about our cats. She's so personable; so cheerful. A sweetheart.”

And there's so much more to Brester than her Safeway smile.
Born March 14, 1974, in Montana, her mother and father, Bill Brester, knew their daughter was different shortly after birth. The doctors said she was developmentally disabled, although the cause may never be known, her mother says.

One out of 10 American families is directly affected by developmental disabilities, according to research by Arc, a Maryland-based group that compiles research about issues that affects disabled people.

Disabilities like Brester’s cut across the lines of racial, ethnic, educational, social and economic backgrounds and can occur in any family. It’s 10 times more common than cerebral palsy and 28 times more prevalent than neural tube defects such as spina bifida.

It affects 25 times as many people as blindness, although it is still a topic a lot of people don’t feel comfortable talking about or just don’t understand.

“(People) will ask me why my head is so small and my lips are so big,” Brester said. “I will tell them that I was born this way. I don’t mind when they ask me questions. Most of the time it is the little children in the line (at Safeway).”
Although parents become embarrassed, often trying to “shush” their kids, Brester sees the opportunity to spread awareness about people and their differences, she says. She is secure in who she is. In fact, Brester has more confidence and self-esteem than most people.

“Yeah, I’m a popular girl,” she says. “When I go to Swanson’s, people are like, ‘You’re in the wrong store!’ ”

Achieves goals
Do you remember when you were told you can do or be anything in the world and you believed it? That sense of empowerment sometimes fades in people as they age. Life doesn’t always go as planned. Sometimes people feel defeated before they ever started living it.

Brester is different. Although she’s a grown-up, she has managed to hold onto that sense of wonder and excitement so many people lose. She sets goals and achieves them.

One of her biggest was graduating from Aberdeen High School, which she did in 1993. Her family all signed a giant diploma commemorating that major accomplishment and it still hangs —nearly 11 years later — above her bed in her room.

Even her smallest victories are relished, like adding another Scooby-Doo item to her collection, or getting her photo taken with Mickey Mouse on a recent trip to Disneyland in California.

Recently she screamed “Yippee” when she opened the blinds at her Aberdeen apartment to find some of the first snowflakes of the season starting to fall. “Can I go outside please, Mother?”

She truly loves life — even after the heartbreaks. She isn’t jaded.
The snow reminds her of her childhood in Montana with her sister, Kendra Ann.

“I remember sledding and making snow angels,” Brester said. “After she died I knew nothing would be the same again.”

Kendra Ann died in 1982, the victim of a drunk driver as she was walking with a friend when the family lived in Andrews, Texas. She died on her way to the hospital. Kelly never had a chance to say goodbye. Her big sister was her world, and without her, the world became a scarier place.

For years, Brester wouldn’t allow her mom to display photos of Kendra Ann. The pain was too much. Now she can look at them, and talk about her sister, but sometimes tears follow the memories. “I miss her very much,” she says.

The family was devastated after Kendra Ann’s death and moved to Aberdeen, to be closer to family, including Brester’s grandmother, Margaret Raihl.
Brester and her mother have been living in the same apartment on North L Street in Aberdeen ever since — just over 20 years now

When her father, Bill, died in 1990, Brester again felt the pain of losing someone she loved. The two were very close and even when he lived in Oregon, he would come to Aberdeen to visit, call her all the time and send her special gifts, her mother said.

Her father and sister are buried together in a Montana cemetery and Brester recently went there to visit.
“I got down on one knee and I kissed their graves,” she said, describing the cemetery as a peaceful place that makes her sad.

Walks to work
Her father left her a Subaru. She tried driving it once, but after backing into the neighbor’s hedge, she decided driving was, “too scary,” she says.
She’s used to walking, anyway. On nice days she walks to and from her Safeway job. She works about 16 hours a week there.

“We liked the apartment because it was close to McDermoth,” Brester’s mom said. Kelly would walk back and forth to school.
For the most part, elementary school was fun, she said. But life at Miller Junior High wasn’t as peachy.

“Kids would pick on me sometimes,” she said. “Like say I had fat lips.”
She shrugged her shoulders as she thought back, saying kids will be kids. She searched for some words about how some of them made her feel. Then she just shrugged her shoulders again and said, “I don’t have any bad words in me.”
High school was better, once she finished her freshman year. As a senior, even Brester felt like she, “ruled the school,” she said, putting her arms up in the air and flexing her muscles.

When you walk into the 29-year-old’s bedroom, it’s like time has stood still from those childhood days. A New Kids On The Block poster hangs on the wall. A giant stuffed Scooby-Doo sits in the corner of the room. A scantily dressed David Hasselhoff picture from his days as TV’s “Knight Rider” was ripped from a magazine and is still stuck on the wall.

It’s not that Brester isn’t “hip” or “with it.” She’s up-to-date with the latest in entertainment news and recently weighed in on the controversial Michael Jackson child molestation allegation.

“I think he’s weird, really weird,” Brester said. “I just like his music, but not him.”

When heavy metal band Metallica made a surprise visit to her apartment complex after the neighbor upstairs won an MTV contest, she met the band. “And the drummer kissed my hand,” she said.

Disney celebrities
She’s been to Disneyland twice, and makes an effort to get her picture taken with all the characters she can find. She also ran into a few celebrities she didn’t expect, like “Xena The Warrior Princess,” played by Lucy Lawless, and a character from the “Flintstones” movie. She and her mother are planning a spring trip to DisneyWorld in Orlando, Fla.

But she would trade it all to meet her favorite star, Cindy Williams, who played Shirley Feeney on the hit show, “Laverne & Shirley.”

“I’m the biggest ‘Laverne & Shirley’ fan ever,” Brester said, showing her collection of the TV shows she has on VHS. Her most prized possessions are her signed photographs from Cindy Williams. One she got by writing to the Cindy Williams fan club. Another her stepfather, Dann Fassnacht, bought through the eBay auction Web site.

“If I could meet Cindy Williams, I would tell her I’m her biggest fan, and that she has been my inspiration,” Brester said.

The “Laverne & Shirley” show, a slapstick comedy that launched in 1976 and maintained a prime time spot until 1983 was about two single roommates. Shirley was the sweet one who loved her Boo-Boo Kitty, the only thing allowed in her bed before marriage.

“I think her character was always happy and funny and sweet,” Brester said. “How I like to be.”
Brester posts messages on “Laverne & Shirley” fan sites, always telling anyone who will listen how big of a fan she is and to send a message to Cindy Williams that she wants to meet her.

Like everything, Brester holds on to the hope. Afterall, anything is possible.
“If I meet her I think I will faint first,” she imagines.

Her mother chimes in, “But if you faint, you might miss your moment.”
It’s doubtful she will truly faint. Brester is more the type to seize moments when they come.

When the announcement came that the Grays Harbor Community Hospital nursing home was going to close last year, she was on the picket lines alongside her grandmother, trying to stop the closure.

The home eventually closed Jan. 1, and now her grandmother lives at Pacific Care in Hoquiam. Brester goes there almost every day with her mom, takes her grandma for walks and makes sure she drinks her juice. Brester enjoys helping the other residents, too.

She and her family share their apartment with six cats. She loves them all the same. Like people, they are all different and special in their own ways.
“I love when they greet me when I come home from work,” she said. “I love to pet them.”

And recently, she found romance where she least expected it — at Safeway.
She recently began dating a fellow courtesy clerk.

They have fun going to the movies and going bowling. “He doesn’t even care if I win,” she added.
It could be love, she adds.
There’s no doubt Brester has plenty in her heart to give.

Lisa Patterson, a Daily World writer, can be reached at 532-4000, ext. 111, or by e-mail at lpatterson@thedailyworld.com

[TJ]

Congratulations Kelly! That is a great article.

[kelly brester]

thank you so much love kelly.

[HuntingtonM15]

Congratulations!!

[Pavan]

Originally posted by kelly brester
thank you so much love kelly.

Kelly, which address did you use to write to her? You should use this one:
Cindy Williams
7023 Birdview Ave.
Malibu CA, 90265

I believe she replies herself with that address. That could be her home address.

[kelly brester]

i worte to cindy williams fan club in calabasas, ca and she has a offical web site its http//www.cindywilliams.com and i found the fan club adress and wrote toh ehr and the next day she sent me a signed autograph picture of her to me and it says lots of love to kelly on it i was very happy to get one from her and now she knows that im her fan , have i met her in person yet? no but i sent the article to cindys fan club and hopefully something will happen thanks kelly.

[Pavan]

Kelly, you should also send her a letter and the article to the address I gave you.

[HuntingtonM15]

I think Kelly has a better chance sending to the address that she did. She already got a response once, so it's apparently associated with Cindy. Over the (almost) 5 years that I've been autograph collecting, the Birdview address has not been responsive for anyone that has tried.

[kelly brester]

hunttington can you talk to cindy for me and see if she got the article and let me know thanks kelly.

[britt britt]

whoo hoo! Congrats Kelly!