After she lost her siblings in a sudden tragedy, Elk River senior channels grief into new purpose

Carley Frank doesn’t talk often about her two late siblings. It’s still too hard. But when she does, she makes sure to talk about their light.

They were both funny. Curious. Solara, 9, with her bright blue eyes and love for art and dance. She mirrored her big sister so closely that Frank called her “a clone.”

“She was such a good kid,” Frank said of Solara. “Kind. Creative. The type of person you knew was going to grow into someone really special.”

Four-year-old Laiken loved dinosaurs, roughhousing and climbing into his oldest sister’s lap to watch his favorite shows.

“Laiken just had the biggest heart,” Frank said.

The children’s deaths in April 2024 were immediate headline news in the Twin Cities — the kind of tragedy that ripples across a community in a way that makes private family grief impossible.

Solara and Laiken were killed by Frank’s stepmother, who then died by suicide.

She couldn’t have imagined then how, nearly two years later, sharing parts of her grief would become her driving force and an inspiration for others.

In those first few days, however, the normally chatty and bubbly Elk River High School student grew despondent. Frank’s mother, Donita Groetsch Grosskreutz, remembers trying to strike a careful balance of letting her daughter grieve without letting her give up.

Grosskreutz reached out to therapists with questions like, “How long do you let your kid stay in bed?”

For the first several days, Frank could do little more than stare at her bedroom ceiling, wishing she had answers from her stepmother and from God.

Frank used to think everything happened for a reason. But that made no sense in the wake of her siblings’ deaths. Her prayers those days sounded more like doubtful pleas, she said.

The next morning, Frank awoke to a double rainbow. She couldn’t help but feel like her siblings were sending her a message.

Rainbows kept showing up. On short drives around town. On long road trips with her dance team. In moments she didn’t expect, suddenly one, often two, would appear in the sky, in a reflection or in the lyrics of a well-timed song. Eventually, Frank and her family and friends stopped trying to explain it.

“It was this reminder that even in your darkest moments, there’s hope for color to return,” Frank said.

Going back to Elk River High School that year meant walking into hallways where everyone knew parts of Frank’s story. It was clear that her peers and even teachers didn’t know what to say.

“I was just ‘that girl’ who had this awful thing happen,” Frank said. “Of course everyone knew, but I just wanted it to be normal because I was forcing myself into my old reality to try to make the new one feel less real.”

With support from teammates and guidance from her Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) class — an international club that prepares high school students for careers in business fields — Frank helped create a project called Significance of a Rainbow, or S.O.A.R., culminating in a benefit held last spring.

The event raised more than $25,000 toward college scholarships in Solara and Laiken’s memory. Frank plans to gift the awards to Elk River High School graduates annually through her brother and sister’s would-be graduation years.

“It was awful and beautiful at the same time,” Frank said of standing on stage to award the first round of scholarships last spring. “There’s been so many moments like that, thinking about why and how I am where I am.”

The S.O.A.R. project went on to place first in the Minnesota DECA competition and fourth internationally in its category in 2025.

Elk River’s DECA teacher, Sonja Weiler, said it was one of the most unifying and powerful projects she’s ever seen from her students. It changed the whole Elk River High School community, Weiler said, starting with Frank.

Frank has continued the work and has big goals for how the project can evolve. This year, she created a DECA project focused on prompting open conversations about mental health. She called it “Behind the Smile.”

“There’s so much people don’t see,” she said. “Just because someone looks OK doesn’t mean they are.”

As part of that effort, Frank brought 20-year-old motivational speaker Marquis Hill to Elk River High School in December. Students packed the gym expecting a routine assembly. Instead, Hill asked them to reflect on instances of when they deal with comparison, pressure, grief or feeling overwhelmed. When he asked how many students had ever felt like it just was all too much, almost every single one of the 1,600 students raised their hands.

At the end of his presentation, Hill paused to recognize who brought him to the school. He thanked Frank, praising her resilience and vulnerability.

Frank fought back tears as Hill addressed her. Earlier in his presentation, when Hill told the students, “We don’t all share the same story, but we all have a story of adversity,” Frank bit her lip and smoothed rows of goose bumps on her arms.

Still, Frank is quick to say that healing hasn’t been linear. She burned out after DECA nationals and still struggles to find a healthy balance between throwing herself into her work and finding time to sit with her emotions.

She continues to have hard days. As her mom, Grosskreutz sees Frank crash in ways she doesn’t let others witness. But Grosskreutz has also noticed a shift, especially since the DECA projects.

“There are pieces of Carley coming back,” she said. “The grief journey is not finished, of course. But there’s a rebuilding.”

Frank is working toward officially shaping S.O.A.R. into a nonprofit, which she can launch under her name when she turns 18. She, Holte and other DECA students are brainstorming ideas for a next-semester project, which may include a gala to support S.O.A.R.

Frank also hosts a podcast, “The Broken Butterfly,” where she talks about grief and mental health in hopes of helping people feel less alone.

On a recent night, the Elk River High School gym filled again, this time for a basketball game fundraiser for S.O.A.R. Students wore shirts bearing rainbow designs and lettering in Solara’s handwriting.

Frank took the microphone at halftime, her voice steady and confident, telling the crowd she created S.O.A.R. to honor her siblings and to remind people that color comes back even after the darkest storm.

In the corner of the gym, her dad, Shawn Frank, slipped in quietly. He isn’t one for big crowds, he said later. He planned to watch her speak, then leave unnoticed.

“She’s amazing,” he said quietly, looking at the rainbow balloons hovering over the S.O.A.R. fundraising table, which included a photo of Solara and Laiken hugging.

“There aren’t words except I couldn’t be prouder of her,” Shawn Frank said. “This is her way of coping — to be out there, making a difference.”