The decision was easy for Rachael Jones. She’d spent months working in the same classroom with MonaRae Yaede.

Jones saw firsthand how the zest for her job made Yaede catnip for her students and was contagious to her co-workers.

After Yaede was left paralyzed by a car accident last year, Jones knew she had to do something to help restore her co-worker to as normal a life as possible. Jones’ first attempt arrives Saturday, when she will host a “girls’ night out” at 3 p.m. at the Manchester Lions Club on Clubhouse Road.

Proceeds from the event, which will include free hairstyling and vendors selling all manner of items, will go toward a handicapped-accessible van that will allow Yaede to get out of the house.

“MonaRae was amazing to work with,” said Jones, who helped teach 3- to 5-year-olds with Yaede at The Children’s Center in Augusta. “She was a solid teacher and very committed. She was great with the kids and she was a great person. She was somebody you just wanted to come to work with. When she got hurt, it hit us hard.”

Jones began organizing a girls’ night out several months ago. She hit on the idea of offering a one-stop shopping event for items that traditionally appeal to women, such as baskets, jewelry and incense. Three stylists will offer women “a fresh new look.”

There will be drinks for sale, free food and a 50/50 raffle, Jones said. A $5 donation is requested from those who attend.

“I’m basing it around what girls I know like and would spend money on,” Jones said.

Vendors who sell items during the event have agreed to donate a portion or all of their commissions to Yaede, Jones said. The vendors also are donating items for the prize drawings. Only one of the vendors, Jessica Abbott, who owns Scentsy candles, and the three hairstylists, including Yaede’s sister, Stefanie Perry, have ever met Yaede. The other vendors agreed to help after hearing her story.

“The girls that are representing their businesses are really giving up a lot,” Jones said. “They’re coming for free, basically.”

Abbott, who worked with Yaede at The Children’s Center, said she is donating all of the proceeds from her sales Saturday to Yaede. Abbott also will give $5 for every new booking she gets and has planned giveaways throughout the night.

“I saw all the struggles (Yaede) and her family are going through, and I thought it was a way to help out,” Abbott said. “She’s fun, loving, the most caring person ever. She is amazing with the kids.”

Yaede, who was 44 at the time of the crash, was on her way to work Dec. 5, 2011, when her car hit a patch of ice on Hallowell-Litchfield Road in West Gardiner and spun into a utility pole. The impact snapped the pole in two and whipped Yaede’s neck, crushing two vertebrae in the process.

Yaede, who was left paralyzed from the chest down, was in the hospital for months and is expected to spend at least a year in a rehabilitation center.

Perry said her sister, who has spent the last several weeks at the River Ridge Center, a rehabilitation facility in Kennebunk, is improving physically and emotionally.

“They’re giving her lots of therapy and teaching her to be as self-sufficient as can be,” Perry said. “She’s been so much better than a lot of people would be.”

Yaede’s father, Carlton Lane, said his wife, Jeanine Lane, plans to attend Saturday’s fundraiser. Lane said Yaede, who split time prior to the crash living with the Lanes in Litchfield and Perry in Pittston, probably will go to live with Perry when she is allowed to leave the rehabilitation center.

“She has to be at a certain level of progress so she can do some things for herself,” Lane said. “There’s no indication she’s going to get movement back in her lower body, but we’re still hoping.”

Meanwhile, Lane continues to recover from his own tragedy. He suffered injuries from a violent crash in January that claimed a portion of his right arm. Lane, who was still logging long hours by his daughter’s hospital bed, theorizes that he fell asleep while driving on Route 219 in Hartford.

“I would say I’m very lucky,” Lane said. “I should not have survived.”

Lane hopes to be fitted for a prosthetic, which he hopes will help him resume a more normal routine.

“My wife has been extremely helpful,” Lane said. “She’s an angel in disguise.”

Perry said family and friends have rallied to support her father and sister. For instance, members of Yaede’s Oak Hill High School class of 1985 recently held a spaghetti supper to raise money for their former classmate. Several hundred people showed up. Yaede attended via the videoconferencing program Skype.

“It’s been really good,” Perry said. “Lots of people from work, and people she went to school with, have offered help. They’ve been amazing.”

Craig Crosby — 621-5642

ccrosby@centralmaine.com

GIRLS NIGHT OUT

Fundraiser for MonaRae Yaede, 3-7 p.m., Saturday, Manchester Lions Club, Clubhouse Road (off Route 17). $5 donation to attend. Information: sooprmom@roadrunner.com.

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