Mauria Stonestreet: The Autism Specialist Behind Eric Stonestreet’s Kansas City Roots

Mauria Stonestreet is an autism specialist, special education teacher, and nonprofit leader from Kansas City, Kansas. She is the sister of Emmy-winning actor Eric Stonestreet and the late Vincent Stonestreet’s daughter. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Kansas and works with the Big Slick charity event.

Most of what circulates about her online treats that first fact — “sister of a celebrity” — as the whole story. It isn’t. She’s spent close to three decades building an actual career, and it’s a more interesting one than her brother’s search traffic gives it credit for.

Who Is Mauria Stonestreet?

Ask Google, and you’ll mostly get her described in relation to someone else: Eric Stonestreet, best known for playing Cameron Tucker on Modern Family. That’s fair context, since it’s the reason strangers search her name at all. But flip the framing around and a different picture shows up — a woman who’s worked in Kansas public schools for over a decade, specialized in autism support for two decades, and now lends that same skill set to one of Kansas City’s biggest annual charity events. The celebrity connection explains why people look her up. It doesn’t explain what she’s actually done.

Family Background and Kansas City Roots

Parents Vince and Jamey Stonestreet

Vince Stonestreet ran a retail business; Jamey worked as a teacher’s aide. They met when Vince was friends with the assistant manager at the theater where Jamey worked a part-time job during high school and junior college. He noticed her at the ticket box, they courted for two years, and married — a union that lasted 57 years until his death. Family accounts describe Vince as a quiet, generous man who helped people without wanting credit for it, a trait his kids point to often when asked about him.

Siblings — Paul and Eric Stonestreet

Three kids came out of that marriage: Paul, Mauria, and Eric, with Eric the youngest, born September 9, 1971. Paul keeps as low a profile as Mauria does, which says something about how this family operates — fame landed on one sibling, and the other two never chased it.

Education and Career

Academic Background

Mauria earned her bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University in 1994, studying speech-language pathology. She followed that with a master’s degree from the University of Kansas in 1999. That’s a five-year academic stretch built specifically toward working with kids who need extra support — not a detour, a plan.

Career in Special Education

From there, the résumé reads like someone who stayed in the work rather than climbing away from it. She spent time as a Special Education Resource Teacher in the Lawrence, Kansas public school system, worked as an Autism Itinerant for over a decade, and later moved into nonprofit leadership, including a stint as an executive director. Across it all, autism spectrum disorder has been her throughline — more than 20 years focused on early identification, classroom support, and helping families navigate special education systems that aren’t always easy to navigate. That’s a specific, technical kind of expertise, and it’s the part of her identity every recycled “who is she” article skips past to get to her brother’s name faster.

Losing Her Father and the Vincent A. Stonestreet Fund

Vince Stonestreet was diagnosed with cancer in 2017. The family spent four years trying different treatments — one would work for a while, then stop, and they’d move to the next option. He died in 2021, and Kansas City Hospice cared for him at the end. Mauria has described that care as something that felt almost intuitive: the staff seemed to know exactly how to help each family member cope, even though everyone was grieving differently.

That experience became the reason the family started the Vincent A. Stonestreet Fund at Kansas City Hospice, officially announced on November 17, 2022 — Vince’s birthday, and the anniversary of his death. Eric and Jamey seeded the fund, and its mission centers on supporting children in hospice and palliative care. It’s not hard to see the throughline here: a woman who’s spent her career working with vulnerable kids, watching hospice staff support her own family through loss, then helping build something that extends that same kind of care to other children. That connection rarely makes it into the articles written about her, and it’s arguably the most human part of her story.

Her Role With Big Slick and Children’s Mercy Hospital

Big Slick is a Kansas City charity weekend that raises money for Children’s Mercy Hospital, with a cast of famous participants that includes Paul Rudd, Jason Sudeikis, Rob Riggle, and Eric Stonestreet. Mauria’s contribution to the event isn’t ceremonial — she works directly with patient families, nurses, and doctors to help craft the personal stories shown during the fundraiser. That’s a skill set drawn straight from her professional background: knowing how to talk with families about hard things, how to translate a child’s medical experience into something an audience can connect with, and how to do it without exploiting anyone’s pain for spectacle.

She’s also stepped slightly into film work, taking a producer credit on the 2022 documentary Just Like You: Anxiety and Depression. It’s not an acting career like her brother’s, but it’s the same instinct at work — using storytelling to help people understand something difficult.

Setting the Record Straight: Mauria Stonestreet and Travis Kelce

This one deserves a direct answer, since search results on it are inconsistent. There’s no personal or romantic connection between Mauria Stonestreet and Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce. The rumor appears to stem entirely from geography — both are tied to Kansas City, both circles overlap through hometown charity and sports culture, and internet speculation did the rest. Some accounts note she’s met him, which is entirely plausible for anyone embedded in Kansas City philanthropic circles, but “has met” and “is connected to” are very different claims, and the second one isn’t supported by anything verifiable.

Her Relationship With Eric Stonestreet

Eric Stonestreet has built a career far from Kansas — two Emmy wins for Modern Family, film roles in Bad Teacher and Identity Thief, and voice work in the Secret Life of Pets franchise. But he’s stayed visibly tied to home, frequently referencing his Kansas roots and family in interviews. Big Slick is the clearest example of that: it’s not a one-off publicity appearance, it’s an annual event where the sibling with the famous name and the sibling with the specialized career work the same room, toward the same cause. He gets the spotlight; she does a lot of the groundwork that makes the event actually mean something to the families involved.

Frequently Asked Questions

How old is Mauria Stonestreet? Her exact age isn’t publicly confirmed. She hasn’t shared a birth date on the record, and no verified source lists one.

Does Mauria Stonestreet have a Wikipedia page? No. There’s no official Wikipedia entry for her; available information comes from biography sites, a hospice organization’s family feature, and scattered interview mentions.

What does Mauria Stonestreet do for a living? She’s worked in special education for over 15 years, specializing in autism spectrum disorder for more than two decades, and has also taken on nonprofit leadership roles.

Is Mauria Stonestreet connected to Travis Kelce? No personal or romantic connection exists. The rumor stems from shared Kansas City ties, not an actual relationship.

Who are Mauria Stonestreet’s parents? Vincent “Vince” Stonestreet, a retail business owner, and Jamey Stonestreet, a teacher’s aide. They were married for 57 years.

What is the Vincent A. Stonestreet Fund? A fund established at Kansas City Hospice in November 2022, seeded by Eric and Jamey Stonestreet, supporting children in hospice and palliative care in honor of Vince Stonestreet.