Last summer I wrote here about the Barry family and their tragic deaths. They were Fairbanksians at heart even though they had migrated to Minnesota, the state of Riana’s birth and childhood. When they died last April, it shook our world in Alaska, too.
Sean and Riana met in Alaska, married at the Georgeson Botanical Garden, and made their first homes together here. Both Shiway and Sadie were born at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. And now, Birch Hill Cemetery is their final resting place.
To memorialize and remember the Barrys here in Fairbanks, close friends installed a hand-built bench and planted flowering trees at the playground at Ken Kunkel Community Center in Goldstream Valley. And we raised almost $40,000 to create an endowment at the Fairbanks Children’s Museum.
The Shiway and Sadie Scholarship Fund at the Fairbanks Children’s Museum will fund scholarships for FCM memberships, summer camps, homeschool enrichment programs, birthday parties, and more, in perpetuity. And the fund isn’t done growing. Now any donation made to the Fairbanks Children’s Museum is given the option to direct all or part of their donation to the principal of the endowment, which will in turn continue to fund more and more services through FCM as it grows.
Since I had written about our GoFundMe here and on my Facebook page before, I wanted to come back and give the update that we did it. Thank you to Kris Capps at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner for her coverage of our efforts and our success, and to each and every person who shared the fundraiser on social media, mentioned it to friends, or donated money to the fund.
I also wanted to share the news in a different light as well - for those out there who may be able to Pick-Click-Give or otherwise donate to community nonprofits, the endowment is a powerful new way to fiscally support the museum’s mission to support children and families in Fairbanks, now and in the future. My absolute favorite thing about the endowment is that it is literally the gift that keeps giving…and giving, on and on. It can become a forever part of our community, just as the memory of the Barrys is for those of us who knew them.
Katie Barry poses with a check for the final $7,550 raised, from a fundraiser in Minnesota organized by Riana’s family.