Service, scholarship set up in honor of teen
Ashley Streeter touched many lives with vivacious spirit
BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

Ashley Streeter

MONROE — To understand the number of lives touched by Ashley Streeter during her life, area residents need look no further than the location of the upcoming memorial service in her honor.

The service will be held Saturday at the Richard P. Marasco Performing Arts Center, a nearly 1,000-seat auditorium at Monroe Township High School.

“I would expect a large turnout, because we’ve received so many phone calls that people would want to participate in something for her as soon as it happened,” said Kelly Laudien, a friend of the Streeter family who is helping to organize the service.

Eighteen-year-old Ashley Streeter was struck by a car just before 7 p.m. Jan. 22 outside the Subway sandwich shop on West Railroad Avenue in Jamesburg, where she worked.

Ashley, a 2005 graduate of Monroe Township High School, was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick, where she died from injuries an hour after the accident. A funeral service was held later that week in New York.

This Saturday’s service will begin at 4 p.m., and is open to the public.

Lois Prestridge, another friend of the family who is organizing the service, said some of Ashley’s friends will read poems, and others will lead the group in song.

“She always had a big smile on her face,” Prestridge said of Ashley, who was known for her kindness and vivacious spirit. “She always made a point of stopping, talking, seeing how you were doing. She was just the friendliest, sweetest person.”

Ashley was born in New York City and moved with her parents, Robert and Trina, and her brothers, Robert Jr. and Daniel Streeter, to Jamesburg in 1996.

She graduated from high school last June and was attending Brookdale Community College in Middletown’s Lincroft section.

Friends and co-workers set up a shrine in Ashley’s honor outside the Subway shop, placing posters, notes, flowers, candles and teddy bears at the roadside area.

Ashley’s positive attitude and amicable disposition were indicative of her upbringing, as her family members shared those traits, Laudien said.

She recalled the time that Ashley and her mother were driving by Laudien’s house and their car broke down in the snow. Neither one seemed fazed by the incident, Laudien said.

“They were laughing,” she said. “They weren’t worried or fretting. They’re just such a nice family, very wholesome, down-to-earth.”

Ashley seemed to follow her parents’ lead while at the same time blazing her own trail, as she did when she wrote her own senior yearbook picture quote, “Live as if you will die today, and dream as if you will live forever.”

The day of the accident, Trina took Ashley out for breakfast and shopping, and opened Ashley’s first bank account. Before Ashley left for work, Trina told her daughter how proud she was of the life she was leading, friends of the family said.

Laudien said Robert and Trina have been warmed by the affectionate and sincere response they have received from the community.

“They really have gone on and on about how our community has come to their emotional aid, and how they can never be thankful enough,” Laudien said, “which was so gracious of them.”

Prestridge said the Streeters have established a scholarship fund in Ashley’s memory. By earlier this week, the employees at Subway had collected $250, and residents of the Streeters’ neighborhood had collected $600.

Because Ashley was an active member of the Glee Club, the Ashley P. Streeter Scholarship Fund, at Ocean First Bank branch in Monroe, will be awarded to a Glee Club member who possesses a happy, easygoing personality, like Ashley’s.

“Who they choose is going to represent the kind of person Ashley was,” Prestridge said.

Those wishing to donate to the fund should contact Monica A. Olson or Alla Lipnitsky at Ocean First Bank, 1600 Perrineville Road, Monroe 08831, (888) OCEAN33 (623-2633), ext. 4600.

Prestridge said that Trina hopes the scholarships will be awarded every year, both to honor her daughter and enable Ashley to leave a legacy from which others may benefit.

“She wanted her daughter’s name to live on,” Prestridge said.