The Jim Dowd Fund at the Gloucester Education Foundation

So many were touched by the beautiful piece Bo Abrams wrote last week in memory of Gloucester’s beloved Jim Dowd and his brother, Johnny. In it, she shares what a difference mentors and caring adults made in Jim’s life, and how painful it was for him that they were missing from Johnny’s:

Jim talked a lot about all the people who mentored him along the way from the time he was about 12. It wasn’t any one person. But it was one person at time, one interest at a time, one program at a time, that helped him survive to get to the next thing. Someone to give a nudge to stick with it when something was hard. Someone to suggest a book or a program. Someone to talk about colleges or vocations or hopes and dreams.

Johnny never had that. Jim hated that.

Bo goes on the explain that…