A La Porte County Life in the Spotlight: Radine Kretlow

radine-kretlowEverybody has a story. Each on is different, and shaped by the other people's stories that play out around them. Radine Kretlow has a story, and page by page, her actions and ideas are helping to shape the lives of others around her as well as herself.

Kretlow was born and raise in Porter, IN. She attended Chesterton High School and deemed music as her favorite subject. Choir was her preferred class and she loved being in Show Choir.

“I was pretty easy going,” Kretlow said. “I was the youngest of four kids and I came eight years after the last one.”

During high school Kretlow got into vocational school where her goal was cosmotology. She attended Doree School of Beauty Culture. She worked at a salon after she graduated until she married her husband Julius in 1990. In 1994 they had their first daughter, Julia, and four years after that came second daughter Alisa.

Twelve years ago, Mr. Kretlow was kind enough to build his wife her in-home salon that she runs to this day: HairPorte. She has lots of clients from the surrounding area and she is fond of every one of them.

“I have the best customer base that I could ask for,” Kretlow said. “Because not only are they clients but they are fiends to me.”

Since she was in grade school, Kretlow has been around and loved kids. She babysat, did daycare with her two daughters when they were little, and always made time for the children of friends and neighbors. Though they may not have been her own, they all easily fit into her heart.

There was one young girl that Kretlow keeps in her memory: Lynsey Painter. Painter was a bright, beautiful girl that was the daughter of a close friend. Painter attended Westville Schools and had a very promising life ahead of her. But things took a different path for her. While in college, Painter got involved with someone who dealt heroin and became addicted herself. After a long struggle with the drug, Painter died of an overdose when she was 25.

The news of Painter's death hit Kretlow hard. The fragility of life was painfully displayed to her upon hearing the news.

“When it happened it scared me,” Kretlow said. “It made me realize that heroin addiction has no face. knowing that it can affect anyone is really frighting. It can be anyone’s daughter or son.”

The night Kretlow found out, she prayed and asked God to either bring Painter back or help her find a way to never let someone get the awful phone call of a child's death due to heroin use again. She began to research for ways to bring education to kids before they ever got involved with this devastating drug.

Since Kretlow is involved with the service industry, she thought she'd try what she knew. John Paul DeJoria, owner of Paul Mitchell Systems has always been greatly involved in charitable giving. Kretlow knew that his name was well-known and respected so she emailed the company to see if any help could be offered. Three days later DeJoria himself called her back.

After a very encouraging phone conversation with DeJoria, Kretlow felt like there wasn't much she couldn't do. She set to work fundraising and getting the word out about her cause, which she named Hands Off Heroin, and ended up raising over $800 in the first four days. All of the money made from then until now are currently being held for the Westville schools through the Unity Foundation.

Kretlow said,“Every penny goes toward the kids -big donations as well as small ones. And the ones that get me are the kids that come up to me and give me the last $3 in their wallets and say 'Please, please, please put this to good use. I’ve come into contact with [heroin], I thought about doing it, Please help the other kids.'” 

She continued with the reason why she chose Westville Schools.

“I wanted to keep it local and help the kids, plus Lynsey went to Westville Schools,” Kretlow explained. “I wanted every to know that this was on the up and up and not that I was trying to raise money for myself. I got involved with the schools and they were very receptive.”

Not too long after Hands Off Heroin came to fruition, a family friend of Kretlow's Nick Woloszyn created a Facebook page as a surprize for her.

Click the link provided to see the Hand Off Heroin Group and make sure to join it! https://www.facebook.com/groups/308305909263165/

“Basically the idea was to get people to see the name and ask me about it and ask about what I’ve doing for the school,” Kretlow said. “I've been running the page since June 2013 an currently it has over 730 members from all over the world.”

Kretlow keeps at her goal to get heroin off the streets and out of the hands of kids and adults. She doesn’t want want people who are struggling now and have died from heroin overdose to be remembered as an addict, but as a person. They are somebody’s child, after all; or someone's parent, spouse, or friend.

“It’s just become this passion. I loved Lynsey but I don’t currently have anyone who is close to me who is having problems with drugs.” Kretlow said. “This is just what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t care if no one remembers my name. If I can save one child or one person then it’s worth it.”

Kretlow and the Westville Schools have done quite a bit to raise awareness and to educate the kids.

They had a concert at school with the band 365 that came to help to raise drug abuse awareness, Dr. Mann Spitler (father of Manda Spitler whose life was taken when she overdosed on heroin) came and did convocation with kids, the Harlem Ambassadors got involved as well Lions Club and other different fundraisers that took place at school.

Outside of Hands Off Heroin and HairPorte, Kretlow loves spending time with her family.

“Any day with my husband and my girls is a good day no matter what we’re doing,” she said with a smile.

And the advice that she has for you, readers:

“Really spend time with the people that you love. You don’t know how important they are to you until they aren’t there anymore,” Kretlow stated. “What I really want people to do is to hug the kids in their community every single day and remind them that they (the kids) are the most important person in their lives, talk to their kids but more importantly LISTEN to them. We all love our cellphones, but they will never love us back. Hugs everyday!”