Breathing life into a legacy is how the board of Julia’s Butterfly Foundation in Wyckoff, NJ felt in 2005 as they picked up the torch of Maureen Bommer who had succumbed to cancer. Maureen, just several earlier months, had lost her 7 year old daughter Julia to a rare kidney disorder. The tragedy of a mother and daughter being re-united in untimely deaths inspired her friends and family to breathe life into their legacy.
Maureen Bommer had hoped to create a foundation that would help families in financial stress due to the burden of medical costs associated with so many terminal and chronic childhood diseases. It is now 2010 and the determination born around the Bommer kitchen table has turned a dream into reality.
Julia’s Butterfly Foundation provides assistance to terminally and chronically ill children in the tri-state area. Prior to her death, Maureen Bommer learned first hand the financial stress of families supporting a chronically or terminally ill child. Knowing she was not alone, she sought to create a foundation that would help others fill the gap left by healthcare providers.
Given the central role of the family in pediatric rehabilitation and care, the efforts of Julia’s Butterfly Foundation to help a specific child also helps the family of that child. Non-medical costs plus loss of pay can easily account for over 25% of the weekly family budget; this adds enormous stress to families already dealing with the emotional trauma one experiences when a child is inflicted with a life altering medical condition. Julia’s Butterfly Foundation seeks to offer some relief with assistance that can bring a bit of a childhood joy back into the family unit.
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Original fundraising efforts in the form of the Butterfly Ball led to a tremendous outpouring of support and success, and the foundation’s board has built on this with a growing list of corporate sponsors and partners. Most recently, Julia’s Butterfly Foundation teamed up with the PGA to help raise funds through The BARCLAY’s tournament being held at the Ridgewood Country Club.
They also teamed up with Cicero Designs in Oakland, NJ to develop a new website to help reach out to those they help, and also those who wish to help in their mission. While they wanted to incorporate all the modern features of online donations, purchases, and social networking, they also wanted the website to be intimate and friendly. “We wanted to create a home online that reflected that same passion we felt as a small group around the kitchen table”, says board president Christine Callahan Rasnake, “but also something that can help grow our community of volunteers and supporters”.
That community of corporate citizens and everyday people concerned over the fiscal stress faced by so many families is growing. It’s growing online, in private homes, and in the hearts of those who give and receive through the efforts of Julia’s Butterfly Foundation. In the words of the late Maureen Bommer, “If you can help someone else, you should, because there is always someone out there who has it worse than you. It’s the right thing to do.”