Our Mission
The mission of The Thomas J. Boyle Memorial Foundation is to provide support and services to military veterans, First Responders, Gold Star families as well as children in need.
About Tom Boyle
Born in Chicago Illinois, soon after graduating high school Tom volunteered to become a United States Marine. After serving two tours of duty in Vietnam and receiving numerous awards including the Cross of Gallantry, Tom then began a 31-year career with the Chicago Police Department. His tenure with the police department also resulted in numerous commendations including the capture of brothers Larry and Tyrone Strickland, who were later convicted of murdering Wheeling police officer Kenneth Dawson.
After 911, Tom wanted to serve his country once again and began another career taking on security consulting and law enforcement missions overseas. These missions took Tom to remote locations around the world including Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
On June 19, 2012, the remote FOB (forward operating base) called Provincial Reserve near Kandahar Afghanistan was attacked by insurgents. It was during this attack that Thomas Boyle was mortally wounded.
The Origins of the Boyle Foundation
During the many deployments, it was not unusual for Tom to request that his wife mail toys and clothing to him to distribute to the children in these war-torn nations. Tom believed that the real victims in any war were the children.
On June 19th, his widow, upon returning home from mailing another package of toys was met by three men who informed her of her husband's death. A few days later she remembered mailing the package and informed the military so that it could be located. The package was lost for over 3 months before it was found. When informed of this, his widow asked the Lt Colonel if it was still possible to honor Tom's last request.
In true military fashion to honor a fallen brother the task was accomplished on October 23, 2012.
In an email from Lt Colonel McKinley;
At long last we were able to deliver the gifts you had sent to Tom for a little girl named Tamanah. The timing was good as she was celebrating Eid-al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice. Appropriate on many levels. It was a celebration at Provincial Reserve in Tom's honor.
These events led to the founding of the Memorial Foundation in which one initiative is the annual toy collection event for children of veterans and military families, first responders, and terminally ill children.
Tom's family continues to honor his life and legacy through charitable acts.
Christmas 2020 Stuff a Bus Event
This year life gave us all lemons and a pandemic.
Our normal fundraising activities at Christmastime included our toy collection at the Place de la Musique Christmas concerts through the generosity of the Sanfilippo Foundation. The Covid pandemic has resulted in the cancellation of these Christmas Concerts at the Sanfilippo Estate and we had to come up with another innovative solution as we couldn't allow our veterans, first responders, the patients at Comer's Children's Hospital, St Francis Solanus Mission School students, and our friends at Fisher House do without this holiday season.
And so, please join us during our first annual Thomas J Boyle Stuff a Bus! This event will be held on December 12 and 13, 2020, look for the Barrington Transportation bus that will be parked on Main Street outside Jewel between the hours of 10 am to 6 pm. We will be accepting monetary donations, gift cards and new unwrapped toys to be distributed to those in need. There is also a satellite Stuff a Bus at St. John's Giving Festival which we will provide further details in a separate post.
Our foundation was founded in honor of my husband, Barrington Hills resident, Thomas Boyle KIA Afghanistan in 2012 and for 8 years we have distributed toys, meals, and school supplies to our military veteran community, first responders, Fisher House, Comer's Children's Hospital, and this year we hope to collect enough toys and gift cards to brighten the holidays to members of the service industry, (waitstaff, bartenders, cooks, etc) many of whom have shortened working hours or have no income at all because of the pandemic.
Please join us and help to make our Stuff a Bus successful. If you are interested in volunteering - send an email to boylememorialfoundation@yahoo.com
Monetary donations can be made at our website
www.tjboylefoundation.org
Spread the word to those you think may need a helping hand this Christmas. Ask them to contact us!
In addition, we are also sponsoring a virtual fundraiser for St. Francis Solonus Mission School. St. Francis is a small mission school located on the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian reservation in Wisconsin. You can purchase items from the link below which is located on The Thomas J Boyle Memorial Foundation Amazon account and have your purchase sent directly to Sister Felissa.
Thank you everyone and here's to a happy and healthy holiday season.
Merry Christmas.
Our Holiday Toy Events
2014. Toys collected at three Holiday Events in Barrington Hills, Illinois.
2016 "A Soldier's Wish: The Thomas J. Boyle Jr. Gift Giveaway"
sponsored by Pauline, Ryan and Andrea Boyle and coordinated by Shondel Barber.
Several hundred children attended the Christmas party held at the Boys and Girls Club of Lac Courte Oreilles.
The giveaway started with an honor song by the Boys and Girls Drum group as LCO Eagle Staff carrier Gary Quaderer Sr. marched around the gym. Childr
In the News
Barrington Hills Life November, 2019
We are grateful to Barrington Hills Life for helping us tell residents of our Village about the Thomas J. Boyle memorial Foundation.