March arrives with its familiar sense of pride and anticipation. As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, our community is preparing once again to celebrate our Irish heritage, culture, and tradition through parades, music, family gatherings, and time-honored rituals that connect past and present. But at its core, this season has always been about more than celebrating.

St. Patrick’s Day carries with it a long-standing tradition of service and generosity. It is an annual reminder that caring for one another –especially in moments of need – is as much a part of our heritage as any symbol or song. That spirit of giving remains deeply embedded in Irish Boston and continues to reveal itself in meaningful ways throughout our community.

It is in that spirit that we are proud to introduce the Forry Foundation for Community Journalism, which we are launching this month as our way to support and sustain local journalism at a time when community news outlets are disappearing at an alarming rate. Its mission is simple but essential: to ensure that independent, trusted reporting continues to inform, connect, and reflect the neighborhoods we serve. Community journalism gives voice to local stories, preserves shared history, and strengthens civic life—and its survival depends on collective investments.

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Throughout this issue of Boston Irish Magazine, readers will find stories that reflect the enduring values of resilience, compassion, and responsibility to one another. These are not abstract ideals, but lived experiences, carried forward by individuals and families who choose to respond to challenges with purpose and generosity.

Aside from those stories, I know of two others tha highlight deeply personal causes born from contrasting experiences.  One centers on a public expression of gratitude for life-saving care and the determination to give back; the other reflects a family’s commitment to ensuring that love and kindness endure beyond loss. Together, they offer readers opportunities to support organizations that are making real differences in real time, and to understand how compassion, once set in motion, can ripple far beyond any single family’s joy or sadness.

Beckett’s Battle

Over the past year, Irish-born John Connolly, his wife Lisa, and their  family have traveled a journey defined by uncertainty, fear, multiple surgeries, and long periods of waiting and hoping as their son Beckett spent the months jousting against a rare and aggressive form of liver cancer.

Today, nine-year-old Beckett is thankfully on the road to recovery, and while he remains under close medical supervision as he adjusts to life with a new liver, he is back in school and once again playing sports. The care teams at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund Clinic played an extraordinary role in renewing Beckett’s life with compassion and medical and scientific expertise that carried the Connollys through their darkest moments.

Throughout their son’s treatment, John and Lisa bore witness to countless other families facing equally devastating diagnoses. “The work being done every day by the doctors, nurses, researchers, and volunteers at Dana-Farber is not just meaningful,” John said, “it is lifesaving.”

As he celebrates his 50th birthday, John has chosen to mark this milestone in a deeply personal and purposeful way. Next month, he will  run in the Boston Marathon in honor of Beckett and in gratitude for the care that gave his family hope when they needed it most, and, in the end,  a positive resolution. John will be striding to raise funds to support Dana-Farber, along the way helping ensure that other families confronting unimaginable diagnoses will receive the same level of care, compassion, and possibility.

Beckett and his twin sister, Ailish, were born on a Marathon Monday, arriving after a frantic drive to the hospital that was interrupted by road closings for the runners, forcing the Connollys to reroute, with Lisa ultimately delivering in a substitute hospital. Nine years later, John will run along those same streets, completing a full-circle journey marked at each milepost by gratitude, resilience, and hope.

The gifting of others has already made a life-changing difference for his family and on April 20th, John will be running to help others extend their generosity to many more individuals and families. Donations to John’s run can be made here: https://tinyurl.com/4radb9fj

A Legacy of Good

Kit and Jerry Boucher were the beloved parents of Katy Boucher, a Stonehill College alumna, and her sister Amy. Their sudden and tragic passing in an ice accident in Eastham in mid-February, a story that deeply shook residents on the Cape and beyond, left an immeasurable void for their family to grapple with while sending ripples of grief through the many communities they touched.

In the days that followed, as family members searched for meaning amid the heartbreak, they found something extraordinary: a notebook inside Jerry’s car that was filled with handwritten plans outlining a fundraising idea that he had been quietly developing to raise money for beds at a local charity. Even in its unfinished form, the message was unmistakable: helping others was never far from his mind.

Katy and Amy chose to memorialize that instinct by establishing the Kit and Jerry’s Foundation for Good in their parents’ name, transforming their profound grief into a living commitment to generosity, service, and care for those in need by turning heartbreak into a way to ensure that Kit and Jerry’s values will continue to make a tangible difference for neighbors in need.

Friends remember Kit and Jerry as warm, open, and joyfully spirited- people whose kindness was never performative, just deeply ingrained. For their children, honoring them through this foundation feels not only fitting, but also faithful to how they lived: quietly, thoughtfully, and always being a couple for others.

As part of a broader wave of community fundraisers rooted in resilience and compassion, the foundation stands as a reminder that even in moments of devastating loss, goodness can endure and grow. Those wishing to learn more or contribute are encouraged to visit Kitandjerry.org.