Sabrina Roberts would have graduated in June with Tahoma High’s Class of 2011.
Instead an empty chair was placed among the graduates in her honor.
Roberts died at the age of 16 on Feb. 19, 2010, from a rare blood disease that ended the talented girl’s rise in the world of singing and acting.
Her mother, Tammy Harris, has done everything she could to keep the memory of her youngest child and only daughter alive.
Harris has had help from the community as well as the 5th Avenue Theatre, which started a scholarship in Roberts’ name last year, so her mother has worked to raise money to contribute to the fund.
“I would like to thank the Maple Valley community for their generosity and support in helping raise donations for the 5th Avenue Sabrina Roberts Scholarship Fund,” Harris wrote in an email. “Sabrina would have graduated this year. In honor of this we began raising money for students to attend theatre camps through the 5th Avenue Theatre.”
The scholarship fund will continue, Harris added, and support aspiring actors and actresses for many years she hopes.
This year, Harris said, donations from the community reached $3,200.
Roberts was nominated for a 5th Avenue Theatre high school musical award for her role as Crystal in Tahoma High’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors.”
It was a goal of hers, Harris said, to win a 5th Avenue Theatre award.
In addition to her stage work throughout Puget Sound, Roberts and her friend Jenna Fernandez were featured on an episode of MTV’s “MADE,” where they went from being “preppy singers” to mixed martial artists in six short weeks. The pair did in that time what it takes most people two years to accomplish.
Roberts told the Reporter in February 2009 that felt like she “got so much out of the experience” including not to judge people based on first impressions.
Fernandez told the Reporter that she felt she and Roberts were “forces to be reckoned with” after the experience with MTV.
Roberts’ memory is a force to be reckoned with now through her friends and especially through her mom.
Donations can be made to the Sabrina Roberts Scholarship Fund at any Bank of America branch.
