Families come in all shapes and sizes, face numerous challenges and, in the end, sometimes the people who love you the most don't share any DNA.
Those were the sentiments expressed by some students in the Steel Valley School District in the essays they wrote for a contest sponsored by Green's Funeral Home in Munhall, "What Family Means to Me."
One student winner was chosen from each of the district's four schools, Barrett and Park elementaries and the middle and high schools. Winners had their essays read at a recent school board meeting.
The younger students received $50 Barnes & Noble gift cards, while Ashley Wolford received a $100 check and the chance to have her essay entered into a national competition sponsored by Aurora Casket Co.
When senior Ashley, 17, -- who was the winner from the high school -- heard about the contest she knew it was her opportunity to pay tribute to her stepmother, Gina Wolford.
"The first thing that came to my mind was that I wanted to tell her how much she means to me," Ashley said.
Ashley said she was abandoned by her biological mother when she was 9 years old. Several years later, her father started to date the woman who would become his second wife and "she welcomed me no matter what, even though I was pretty mean to her at first," Ashley said.
She said her stepmother has shown her that "family doesn't really mean the people who you are born to."
In her essay, she wrote: "The true meaning of a family has nothing to do with DNA. Family makes up the people who choose to love and stick by you no matter what happens."
Middle school student Erin Barefoot, 14, in eighth grade, also focused on her mother in her essay. But Erin's essay talked about how her family joined together to help her mother fight breast cancer twice.
The first time Erin's mother, Joyce Barefoot, was diagnosed with breast cancer was in 2000 it was around the time of Erin's sixth birthday, she said. Despite the diagnosis her family had a bowling party for Erin's birthday.
Several years ago, Mrs. Barefoot was diagnosed with breast cancer a second time.
"This time I was a lot older and it scared me, but I knew we had already been through this before and we could do it again," Ashley wrote.
She said during her mother's illnesses, her family, which also includes brother Thomas, 18, and sister Kelly 16, pitched in to keep the household functioning and to help her mother recover.
That meant, her dad, Brian, did most of the cooking.
"Dad did a pretty good job with that, only I have to say, my mom is a better cook," Erin said.
Erin also wrote about her own medical diagnosis: scoliosis, or curvature of the spine. She is required to wear a plastic brace to keep her spine in place and faces surgery in June. She wrote that she is "scared" about the surgery,
"Even though I'm scared I know my family will be there every step of the way. They will protect me, love men and make me laugh at myself," she wrote.
Erin said the message that she would like the public to take from her essay is this: "My family goes through much stuff everyday and we always find a way to love each other and that's what every family should do. No matter what they go through they should always be together and they should always love each other."
Elementary essay winners Savannah Merrill from Park and Karly Deutsch from Barrett, both fifth-graders, had differing themes in their essays.
Karly wrote about her large extended family, whose members live in Munhall and the traditions they uphold for the holidays, including their traditional Christmas Eve dinner of doughballs, sauerkraut and fish.
"A family means more than just the people who live in your house. I have three cousins, five aunts and seven uncles and a pap and grandma," Karly said.
She said this holiday season will be difficult because it will be the first without her maternal grandmother, who died last summer.
Karly also wrote about her little sister, Kacee.
"My little sister and I fight all of the time and we share the same bedroom. But I would miss her so much if I didn't have her," Karly wrote.
But for Savannah, family means just two people: Her and her mother, Donna Jean Dragojevich.
"My parents are divorced and it's just my mom and me," Savannah said.
Her essay points out the advantages of a two-person family.
"We have a lot less laundry. We have less expensive vacations and there's only two people so it's easier to agree where to go," she said.
"We are just like any other family," Savannah said. "We go grocery shopping and do all of the same things that other families do. Any amount of people still makes a family."
