News Article by The Sudbury Star Dec 11, 2023
Nursing student launched charitable foundation in memory of her mom.
The Sudbury Women’s Centre is benefitting from a Christmas drive organized by a local philanthropist.
Third-year nursing student Tashoy McKenzie-Pearson said she created the Janet Frazer Extraordinaire Foundation in memory of her mother, who died from cancer when she was still in her teens.
“Growing up in Jamaica we weren’t rich but she still raised us to always give what we could and to be kind to other people,” she said in a message to The Star.
The Laurentian University student recounted a time when she was 13 or 14 and arose to find some of her own footwear missing from a shoe rack.
“As I headed to the veranda, I noticed bags of my own clothes and shoes,” she said. “I asked my mother what was going on and she explained she was donating my things to our neighbour’s child because most of the items were barely worn or brand new.”
While McKenzie-Pearson was not happy at first about losing her possessions, that changed when she saw the look on the face of the recipient, a girl younger than herself.
“She had the biggest smile,” she said. “I realized that I could not be responsible for taking away that smile and joy in her heart. I couldn’t do it … I gave her all the items and went in my room to grab more stuff just to give her.”
Since then she has made giving a priority in her life, first on her own and then in partnership with friends, schools and businesses. That, in turn, led to her to launch the JFE Foundation.
“For this year’s Christmas donation drive I chose the Sudbury Women’s Centre and also will be giving to people on the street in Toronto who are homeless and new refugees,” she said.
McKenzie-Pearson said she was hurt in a car accident a couple of months ago — on her “mother’s birthday, of all days” and his still recovering from her injuries, which included a concussion.
This year’s campaign might have happened at all, she said, had it not been for the help of her husband Al-Jerome, whom she wed just a month prior to the accident.
“I am not fully healed so my husband has been the muscle and the other half of my brain in the process,” she said.
Tony’s Auto Shop donated items towards this year’s drive, she said, as did the Laurentian University Nursing Students Association and Association Des Etudiantes Et Des Etudiants En Sciences Infirmieres at LU.
“I couldn’t have done it this big without them, so I have to highlight this year’s partners,” said McKenzie-Pearson. “I’m grateful.”