CENTER TWP — Shelley Hepler says her five adopted children came down with a little "mommy-itis" when her husband died last summer.

They needed her more than ever.

But Shelley, 44, never found herself raising a family alone.

Friends, family and community are pulling the Hepler family through this tragedy.

"I can't say enough thank you's. It's been phenomenal," she said. "All the bad you see in the world? There's a lot of good that people don't see or hear about."

Forty-three-year-old Donald Hepler, who was better known as Moose, had a fatal heart attack while keeping score at the Center Township All-Star Baseball Tournament for 11-year-olds. He had helped organize the games, and one of his children was on the home team.

Moose Hepler had volunteered in the athletic organization in different capacities for about a decade, since he and Shelley adopted their first child.

In all, the Heplers adopted four boys and a girl, now ages 9 through 17.

Since Hepler's death, the baseball association has been one of the family's greatest supporters, creating a fund to help pay their home heating bill as well as other needs.

Also, AKSteel and Johnson Controls pitched in a large gift card and cash. Moose Hepler worked for Johnson Controls, which provided plant protection to AK Steel.

And the family received an envelope packed with gift cards for Christmas signed only "Santa."

There's also been help from attorney Wink Robinson, the football association, the Karate Club ... too many helping hands to name.

"We're making it," Shelley said. "The kids understand they can't get everything they want. They are understanding. We are not a horribly material family. We have each other."

Since having each other has been more important this past year, Shelley quit her full-time job as director of nursing at an assisted living facility in Allison Park.

Most of the children had gone through some tremendous loss before they were adopted into the Hepler family. This second loss left them worrying if Shelley so much as drove to work or left the home for a long period of time.

All of the children now are in grief counseling, and Shelley went to a support group for a while.

In this area of life, too, it has been friends, family and community that has kept the family on its feet.

Mike, 12, got his first deer this year —- an 8-point buck — while hunting with Moose Hepler's two brothers.

Randy, 17, still plans to go to college after he graduates high school at the end of this school year.

Cheyenne, 11, badly misses being "Daddy's Little Girl."

Lee, 10, who had been daddy's helper, still makes things in the backyard, like he once did with his father. He made the Christmas manger this year and did most of the holiday decorating.

Dalton, 9, is the quiet one.

"He told me he's sad on the inside, but can't be sad on the outside,"said Shelley, who has plans in the new year to go back to work as a part-time school nurse.

"We have our good days. We have our bad days," she said. "The kids are trying to go on the way their dad would want them to."