When a car accident on Tega Cay Drive left an 18-year-old with a serious spinal cord injury, her neighbors on Timberlake Drive created a Love Fund. Four months later, the city made her birthday a civic holiday.
The accident happened on Tega Cay Drive. Sandy Redmon, eighteen years old, was thrown from her car. She was taken to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte with a serious spinal cord injury. Doctors said she had undergone surgery but could not say how many of her physical capabilities would return.
Tega Cay did not wait for a final prognosis before deciding how to respond.
Neighbors Who Didn’t Wait
Sandy was the daughter of Jim and Lynn Redmon, of 25038 Timberlake Drive. It was their neighbors on Timberlake who moved first. Before the April 1996 Tradewinds had even gone to print, they had established the Sandy Redmon Medical and Educational Fund. A Love Fund, the Tradewinds called it. Set up to provide for Sandy’s future medical and educational needs, with the expectation that those needs would be significant and long-term.
The appeal in the April 1996 issue was direct and unambiguous:
“We hope that the people of Tega Cay will respond in large numbers to show Sandy that we care for her and will be praying and pulling for her as she fights to gain all the functions that she can. Sandy deserves and needs this kind of support.”
The Tega Cay Tradewinds, April 1996
The newsletter ran the fund information, the mailing address, and a note that groups or individuals who wanted to organize fundraisers could call for help and coordination. The community was being organized, and people picked up the phone.
A City Rallies
By August, the response had spread beyond Timberlake Drive and beyond individual donations. The Lioness Club announced a Belgian Waffle Breakfast at the fire station, with net proceeds going to Sandy’s fund. Donna Britsch, who had spent years collecting aluminum can tabs for a boy with leukemia and the Ronald McDonald House, turned that same effort toward Sandy. She set up collection points at the police station and at her home on Koala Circle.
“Let’s show Sandy our support!” Donna told the Tradewinds.
Then Mayor Steve Hamilton brought the matter before the city council.
August 8: Sandy Redmon Day
At the July 1996 council meeting, the first meeting of Tega Cay’s eighth city council, Mayor Hamilton raised Sandy’s situation and formally moved to honor her. The council passed a resolution declaring Thursday, August 8 as “Sandy Redmon Day.”
August 8 was Sandy’s birthday.
The August 1996 Tradewinds reported the resolution in Mayor Hamilton’s own words:
“Council passed a resolution declaring Thursday, Aug. 8 as ‘Sandy Redmon Day,’ which also happens to be Sandy’s birthday. We wish Sandy and her family the very best and want to let her know that the City is behind her 100 percent.”
Mayor Steve Hamilton, The Tega Cay Tradewinds, August 1996
Tega Cay’s birthday, as a city, is July 4, 1982, the date chosen when it incorporated. The city has always taken that date seriously. Declaring another birthday a civic day, with a formal resolution, was not a casual gesture. It was the city saying, in the most official language available to it, that Sandy Redmon belonged to them.
What Tega Cay Did, and Why It Matters
In 1996, Tega Cay was a fourteen-year-old city. It had survived bankruptcy courts, Hurricane Hugo, and years of fights over water rates and development. It had also built something that none of those battles fully captured: a habit of showing up for its own.
The Sandy Redmon story is that habit made visible. Neighbors organized before anyone asked them to. The Lioness Club turned a breakfast into a fundraiser. A woman who had spent years collecting can tabs for a child she never met redirected that same effort. The city council passed a resolution. All of it happened in the span of four months, from the accident to the named day.
Sandy Redmon was eighteen years old and a patient in a Charlotte hospital when Tega Cay declared her birthday a holiday. She would be in her late forties today. The city has never formally rescinded that resolution.
Sources: The Tega Cay Tradewinds, April 1996 (TW 96-4), “Show Support for Sandy,” p. 5; The Tega Cay Tradewinds, August 1996 (TW 1996-8), “From Mayor” and “Council Meeting Notes,” p. 3. Original print editions, Tega Cay History Archive.
TAGS: Sandy Redmon, Jim Redmon, Lynn Redmon, Steve Hamilton, Mike Horan, Donna Britsch, Lioness Club, Sandy Redmon Day, Love Fund, Timberlake Drive, 1996, Tega Cay history, community support, spinal cord injury, Carolinas Medical Center
Do you remember Sandy Redmon, or are you part of the Redmon family? Sandy would be in her late forties today. Do you know what happened in the years after the accident, and after the city named a day in her honor? The neighbors on Timberlake Drive who started the Love Fund, and the council members who voted for the resolution, would have answers worth preserving. Share what you know in the Tega Cay History Facebook Group or reach out through our Contact page.
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