April 2025 Update
This is the first of what we hope will be a monthly up date of the goings on at the foundation. That is your foundation, the Julia Coey Memorial Foundation, the little foundation that could!
As in every organization a lot goes on behind the scenes and our volunteers are mostly unsung and they like it that way. Running a foundation is a lot of work, much to our ongoing surprise.
For example we had to update and amend our By-laws to comply with the Ontario Non-profit Act of 2010. This particular exercise took a lot of time. We are not complaining because every non-profit in Ontario had to do it. We were lucky in that we had only recently approved our original by-laws and so we were pretty much in compliance. Jim worked on a set of by-laws for another non-profit that had not been looked at since the 1950’s.
At our board meeting on March 20th, we voted to donate to 3 charities with educational components. You will recall that we have a three year plan for our donations and the 3rd year we had determined was to be educational. Scholarships and bursaries are a bit complicated to manage so we set our disbursements committee the difficult task of finding worthy charities with an educational component. We also invited you to submit suggested charities of your choice.
Erin and Lesley deliberated long and hard and presented the board with a list of worthy candidates and the board of directors choose three charities. Each of these very deserving charities will receive $2000.00 in 2025 thanks to you our very generous donors.
Ontario Parks Association Foundation
The Ontario Parks Association Foundation provides scholarships and bursaries to qualified students who are pursuing post-secondary in Parks management, horticulture, landscaping, conservation or environmental resource management.
Green Thumbs.
This non-profit runs school garden programmes that provide all ages and all backgrounds with a variety of settings such as native plantings, meadow ecosystems, native tree species and planting and tending their own gardens.
Ontario Nature Youth Summit.
The foundation’s donation will provide funding for disadvantaged youth to attend the annual Ontario Biodiversity Youth Summit at Trent University in Peterborough. The aim is to bring people together to build a future where biodiversity is valued and conserved and to help our future citizens live in harmony with nature.
On Friday 28th of March some of the board met at the Barrie Food bank to deliver a cheque for $2000.00. The need for donations and food is shockingly great. Karen Shuh, the C.E.O., told us that they average 400 new clients per month.
You can reach us at info@juliasfoundation.org or jim@juliasfoundation.org if you have any comments. We love hearing from you especially about your Jaunting for Julia forays.
Don’t forget it is easy to donate by eTransfer to info@juliasfoundation.org
Founding board members Terri and Lesley present another donation to the Barrie Food Bank.
FILL A Purse for a Sister
by Lesley Coey
When I happened across the “Fill a Purse for a Sister “ campaign I was intrigued and I just had to find our more about it.
Quite simply it is all about helping to bring comfort, hope and dignity to women and youth in crises. The Campaign, which runs annually from September to December, aims to give the gift of gently used or new purses filled with needed personal care items. Each community campaign is led by local volunteers and donations to go local shelters and crises and support centres.
Angel Freedman is the President and Founder of this wonderful Campaign. Her mission is to promote awareness, especially around domestic violence and, as she says, "make this a better world, one community at a time"
I think you will agree that this is a good cause and one that Julia would have embraced wholeheartedly and that is why I was so pleased when the Board of Directors of the Julia Coey Memorial Foundation approved a donation of $1000.00 in Shoppers Drug Mart prepaid cards from FundScrip to “Fill a Purse for a Sister"
I met with the campaign co-ordinator for the Barrie area, Nicole Pilger, owner of RenuU Aesthetics (www.renuaesthetics.com) to find out firsthand how much time and commitment is involved in this amazing charity. Nicole has been very busy sorting through donated products and filling the purses, while running her business at the same time.
We really are helping folks, one charity at a time!
Lesley presents a cheque to Nicole.
Donating to Toronto Wildlife Centre.
by Jim Coey
On the 28th of October, 2024 Julia's Foundation presented a cheque for $1000.00 to the Toronto Wildlife Centre. Julia worked there before she died and had found her dream job. The centre rehabilitates and cares for sick and injured wildlife and it does all this with a minimum of fuss. To say it is a large organization would be understating the facts a little. During the summer months with staff and volunteers working for them on their two sites. the number of people working was close to 100.
Lesley, Marilyn Down, one of our directors, and myself travelled out to the second site in Markham bordering on the Rouge Valley to present the cheque. The Markham site is enormous with enclosures and compounds and an old barn and farmhouse on 68 wild and magical acres.
Can you imagine that an outfit that large caring for the wildlife in the Greater Toronto Area and doing it all with money from private donors. It is an incredible story of dedication and love. Your dollars are going to help in some really needy places. The picture below shows a number of rehabilitation structures in a wilderness setting where injured and sick animals can recuperate with a minimum of human contact. Well done the TWC
Rehabilitation enclosures in the Rouge Valley
Shannon Brown (Marketing director TWC) receives the cheque from Marilyn Down, Director JCMF
Grief and Geckos in Malawi
A dispatch from 2017 when Nora travelled to a wildlife centre in Lilongwe.
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In February of last year I lost my best friend: Julia. It was awful for all of us. We saw it coming (cancer) but it also caught us off guard (people who are larger than life aren’t suppose to die). I spent the better part of the year trying to figure out wtf had happened. I tried to do self care and sort out life with a massive hole in it.
Would things be changed forever? Certainly. Would I ever feel completely normal? The jury still seems out on that one.
I went to Malawi for the month of November. I was there for work, volunteering on a wildlife rehabilitation program. I was making sure it was safe and fun and doing work that I could put my company’s stamp behind. I had met Julia at a wildlife rehabilitation centre in Canada so the trip seemed double sad and double significant and double special and all the things you feel while you are grieving.
Geckos are little messengers from the other side. They are sent to let us know people who had passed on are thinking about us.
On my first day volunteering I met all the other volunteers and we got to chatting about the things you do when you are travelling: vaccinations, movies, phone plans and geckos. There was a gecko in the volunteer living room and as he chirped away, a German woman told us about a book she had read when she was younger.
The book was about something she couldn’t remember, but the part that stuck with her was that geckos are little messengers from the other side. They are sent to let us know people who had passed on are thinking about us. I asked if she believed this idea. She shrugged and said she didn’t know but wasn’t it a nice idea? We all agreed.
When I was there, I celebrated Julia’s birthday. It was the first since she had died and I was very hesitant to even think about it. On the morning of, I woke up to the sounds of baboons and vervet monkeys climbing around outside. They called to each other and played in the safety of the centre. I took a deep breath as I un-tucked my mosquito net from my bed and put sandals on.
Sometimes life is sad. Sometimes life is an adventure. And sometimes life is absurd. Sometimes life is all of those things (and more) and you remember that because of a dead gecko.
I looked at the light streaming in through the windows below the thatched roof and, through tears in my eyes, saw the dust dance in a sun beam. I took another deep breath, put on my volunteering shirt and took an anti malaria pill. In fact, I muttered ‘I miss you Julia’ and went towards the door to start my day. Then I saw it… a gecko. On the ground… dead. I went from hesitant and sad to sitting on the ground laugh-crying.
Julia was one of the sweetest people I had ever met and she also was hilarious. She, like everyone in our lives who loves us, would never want to see any of us sad. A gecko in my cabin on her birthday? That is tear inducing, it’s a bit real. A dead one? That’s comedic gold. I knew immediately she was thinking about me but that she also wanted me to laugh and shake my fist at the sky.
Sometimes life is sad. Sometimes life is an adventure. And sometimes life is absurd. Sometimes life is all of those things (and more) and you remember that because of a dead gecko.
Jaunt for Julia
We are delighted to announce that the first annual Jaunt for Julia on September 10th 2022 was a success.
We encouraged people to go for a jaunt or walk or even a jog. Some went for bike rides but no matter what they did they had a thought for Julia. After their jaunts people donated to the foundation and that helped us give even more to important and valuable charities in 2022.
This is what her foundation is all about, keeping her memory alive through activities and supporting the community. Here are some pictures from all around the world! Ireland, France, England, Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Quebec were all represented, hopefully in 2023 we will add more people and more communities to this Jaunt.
Year End Report
End of year report
Hello Everyone,
2022 has been quite a year for the Julia Coey Memorial Foundation, and I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on our journey in building the Foundation, and, more importantly, thank everyone for their support who has helped us get to where we are today.
After Julia passed in February 2017, Jim, Lesley and I immediately knew through our grief that we wanted to do “something” to keep Julia’s memory alive. Over the next several months, the idea of a Memorial Foundation crystalized-an organization devoted to the causes Julia spent so much time and energy supporting. We had an objective, but the roadmap to get there was still murky.
We were successfully awarded Registered Canadian Charitable status a couple years later. Since then we have assembled a-frankly amazing-team of Julia’s friends and family as our Board of Directors, and began our fundraising for charities and causes Julia held dear, in earnest.
I am so proud to report that 2022 exceeded all of our expectations, and that is completely down to you and your support. This past year we were able to distribute $5,500 in total to the Barrie Food Bank, The Donkey Sanctuary of Canada, the Toronto Wildlife Centre, Hospice Simcoe and Nature Canada. Our Foundation also proudly named two new Board Members (bringing our total to 9 members), as we plan ahead for an exciting and impactful 2023.
Thank You so much for your support over the past year. We could not have done anything without you, and we look forward to connecting again throughout 2023.
Happy New Year!
Greg Down
President