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April 2004

Jay Fund going strong under Coughlin's leadership

Keli Coughlin

By TOM CAIN
Staff Writer

Former Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin may have left for New York and his new job as the coach of the Giants, but his daughter, Keli Coughlin, said the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Foundation is still going strong, helping children in Jacksonville.

Keli Coughlin is in her third year as UNF’s head athletic trainer after serving as the assistant trainer for three years. She is also the executive director of the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Foundation, which provides financial assistance and other help for the families of children with leukemia or another childhood cancer. The foundation also supports local clinical research on the diseases.

“It’s about the kids and helping the kids,” Coughlin said of her foundation work. “What we do is insignificant compared with what they (children and families) are going through. It makes you feel good to be able to help.”

It also can be gut-wrenchingly sad. Coughlin tells the story of two 10-year-olds who were laughing and having fun at a holiday party organized by the foundation. A few weeks after the party, both had died of leukemia. The children were aware that they didn’t have long to live, but they were able to play and enjoy the moment.

“It can be sad at times,” Coughlin admitted. “But when you get time to spend with the families, it can be uplifting.”

Coughlin said she sees the families and children five or six times a year at activities such as a Valentine’s Day party. She said some of the family members and the staff at Nemours Children’s Clinic, which refers families to the foundation for help, have expressed concern about what would happen if the Jay Fund Foundation left Jacksonville.

Coughlin assured them that isn’t going to happen.

“Our real focus is to provide the family with the ability for them to concentrate on the child and not have to worry about other things,” she said. Some of the things the Jay Fund Foundation has taken care of include making car, mortgage and utilities payments for families.

Families are chosen to participate in the program through requests by social workers at Nemours. Financial need is the main criterion. In addition to helping with monthly expenses, the foundation also pays three or four times a year for patients to receive a $22,000 medical procedure called a cord blood transplant.

The foundation also has set up a college scholarship fund for leukemia and cancer survivors. The foundation organizes regular programs and activities for the children and their families and has a yearly Remembrance Weekend retreat for families who have lost a child.

The Jay Fund Foundation is supported by private donations. The main fund-raiser is a yearly golf tournament and silent auction. In 2003, the foundation donated more than $200,000 to cancer patients and their families. Keli Coughlin’s duties as executive director include working with doctors and social workers at Nemours to determine the best ways to help the patients and their families, program planning, fund-raising and day-to-day operations, such as handling e-mail, regular mail and phone calls.

Tom Coughlin started the Jay Fund Foundation in 1995 to honor the memory of Jay McGillis, who played football for Coughlin at Boston College in the early ’90s. McGillis was diagnosed with leukemia at the end of a football season and died a few months later.

The foundation is in good hands, according to Ernie Bono, a member of the board of directors.

“Keli is the heart and soul of the Jay Fund,” Bono said. “How she has managed to juggle all the activities and a full-time job amazes me. Keli is somebody you just can’t say no to.”