Michele and Keith Gansberg hope no other family has to experience the pain of having a loved one killed by a drunk driver.

Their 21-year-old daughter, Kaylee Gansberg of Lisle, was hit in August 2022 while she was walking near the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She was a senior at the time.

Angel Hostiguin, 22, of Kalamazoo, was sentenced to between 4.5 years and 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to operating while intoxicated causing death.

“I truly am humbled to stand in front of you and tell you that what you do every day matters,” Michele Gansberg told law enforcement officers gathered at the Oswego Police Station on April 18.

“Please know that my family and I appreciate the line that you walk every time you go out to keep the community safe,” Gansberg said.

She spoke as part of a saturation patrol roll call hosted by Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Illinois and Missouri that was focused on getting impaired drivers off the road.

Among those in attendance that night were officers from the Oswego, Yorkville, Plainfield and Plano police departments as well as officers from the Kendall County Sheriff’s Office.

At the same time as the presentation in Oswego, there was another presentation in St. Louis, Missouri. Afterwards, law enforcement officers patrolled the streets looking for impaired drivers.

“This partnership reflects the reality that impaired driving does not stop at state lines,” said Cecilia Miglio, court monitoring manager for the MADD organization in Illinois.

“And neither does our commitment to addressing it. Our purpose is simple – it is to end impaired driving and to continue to support our victims and prevent it from happening altogether," she said.

DUI enforcement literally saves lives “and that is the foundation of everything we do here at MADD,” said Miglio. “When the community sees active enforcement, it creates a powerful deterrent effect. It changes behavior before someone even makes the decision to drive impaired.”

Miglio said the goal of the effort is to increase DUI enforcement and to let the public know that officers are out patrolling for impaired drivers.

“Our organization has helped decrease impaired driving by about 40 percent since we’ve been around,” she said.

MADD was founded in 1980.

Michele Gansberg said she wanted to let people know more about her daughter.

“Being able to say her name, being able to make her come alive again tonight with these officers, she becomes a person again,” Gansberg said after the presentation. “And that is so powerful to me. Nobody wants their loved one’s life to mean something in this way. But if this is what we have, I want to make her proud.”

Keith Gansberg said they wanted to make sure the police officers who attended the presentation know that they make a difference.

“That one person that they pull over and they stop for a DUI, that could prevent a terrible crash,” he said.

Oswego Police Chief Jason Bastin said the department strives to make roadways safer.

“Three years in a row now, that’s been one of our goals,” he said. “One of the things that officers can do to safe a life is to stop a drunk driver. Every time we stop a drunk driver, I feel like we’ve saved at least one life.”

Oswego has experienced DUI crashes that have taken multiple lives at once, Basting said, “so officers could be saving more than one life. What’s great about having someone like Michele come in and tell her story is that really helps inspire our officers and put a face to a cause.”