By Tambra Smoot
tambrasmoot@gmail.com
My name is Tambra Smoot and I am reaching out to you all in regards to my sister Princess Crenshaw.
Princess started her teaching career at Winton Woods, Mt. Healthy, and Lakota East. She then transitioned as an Assistant Principal at Winton Woods High School for several years where she made some of her biggest impacts. She has now recently started her new Assistant Principal position at Sycamore High School. She obtained her Undergraduate Degree at Bowling Green State University, her Masters at The University of Cincinnati, and her Doctorate at The University of Charleston-West Virginia. All while continuously working in education. So as you can imagine Princess has become a parental figure for many students over her educational career thus far.
Princess is selfless and has always put her student needs first. Even after her “babies” graduate she continues to keep in touch with them. She attends college graduations, weddings, baby showers, and so many more life events that her students have after they graduate. The relationship she builds with her students have always been genuine and don’t stop after high school. Even when she goes through her own challenges, she is there to make sure that her students can make it through theirs first.
The reason that I am writing all of this is because Princess has been recently diagnosed with cervical cancer for a second time. When she went through this battle two years ago, she went through IVF treatments in hopes to have a child later in life in case she was not able to carry on her own after her surgery. Fast forward to now, her cancer has been deemed aggressive and both of her treatment options will prevent her from carrying a child of her own now and at the moment Princess doesn’t have any children.
This letter is about her in hopes that we can raise enough money to help her with IVF treatments, travel expenses to her cancer treatments, which are in Chicago and Baltimore, and to also help pay for her high deductible plan. Since she just switched jobs, her being out of work may push her into a bit of loss of income as well when she has to sit out for possible surgery and/or chemo and radiation.
She was only able to get one embryo with her last IVF attempt, which only gives her one chance at having a successful embryo implant with a surrogate which also means, she will only be able to have only one biological. She deserves more! She has worked so hard to do things the right way and be an example to her students. Princess is loved and appreciated by so many and those are the ones that have gotten the pleasure of meeting her. My hope is she will get the abundance of love and support that she so deserves because she has given it out so much herself.
She is keeping her same Give Butter Campaign (https://givebutter.com/wegotyouprincess) that was started two years ago to make it easier as she tracks her journey and lists how her expenses are allocated. Her current village can only do so much. We need more people to help!
Her cancer is aggressive so we are pressed for time. The IVF treatments take several weeks itself, but she has to pay for those expenses up front before she can even start the process.
I appreciate you all for taking the time to read this and pray that you all can assist. It’s a simple, but extremely impactful gesture.
Thank you.