A Community Impacted by Tragedy Reacts with Kindness

By Billy Freeman

Some dates live in infamy. Some, like December 7, 1941, are felt by an entire nation.

Others, like October 13, 2018, are felt on a much smaller scale, like by a family and its community.

This was the case of that October day three years ago for one Bucks County family. That day, a young boy named Joey Edwards was killed in an accident in Warrington, PA. This was a tragedy felt through the communities of Warrington, Chalfont, and Central Bucks at large.

For me and my family, this tragedy hit quite close to home. The Edwards family lives in the neighborhood I grew up in. Joey would often be found sitting next to my youngest brother on the school bus or skating in the street in front of my house with another of my brothers. I remember hearing the news from my mother over the phone and thinking about the wonderful person we had only barely gotten to know.

The loss of one so young is always shocking and painful. For many, it is something they can never truly move on from. In the Edwards’ case, this may be true, but that has not stopped them from trying to do good for the world around them.

Following Joey’s death, his parents Dan and Marina Edwards began receiving messages of Joey’s kindness, tangible reminders of the impact their son had on his school, neighborhood, and community. Inspired by the outpouring of messages about their child, they created the Kind Like Joey (KLJ) Foundation in Joey’s memory.

Before the foundation ever really got off the ground, the Central Bucks community had come together to honor his legacy in a way that was felt by everyone in the area. November 20, 2018, became known as Kind Like Joey Day. Less than a month had passed since his untimely and tragic passing, and a still grieving community took its time and effort to come together to help itself and its members through random acts of kindness. Inspired once again by the kindness he showed others, but never talked about. On Kind Like Joey Day 2018, KLJ’s first official event, students delivered cookies to their classmates, teachers received floral bouquets, strangers were given free cups of coffee, and homeless people were given gifts of comfort all in Joey Edwards’s name.

In the years since KLJ’s founding, the impact can be seen and felt throughout the Central Bucks community. Following Joey’s accident, neighborhoods around where the family lives were filled with commemorative yellow ribbons adorning trees, stop signs, and even cars. To this day, many still have their yellow ribbons as a show of remembrance.

The Kind Like Joey Foundation’s goal is to spread kindness and to provide financial support to families who suffer the sudden loss of a school-aged child in the Greater Philadelphia region.

KLJ’s work goes beyond visual symbols of support and solidarity, regardless of how important those are to the family and the community. Their work in helping families and individuals in need goes further, from simply providing resources to financial awards. Right on their website, they have a list of resources curated to help grieving families. These include Hayden’s House, a retreat program for mothers who have lost very young children; Safe Harbor, a program that assists grieving teens, children, and their families; as well as other lists other compiled resources.

Going further, KLJ will also provide financial assistance to families in need. Specifically, the families they aim to help are those bereaved families on a case-by-case basis. Even still, they offer more to those who may need it.

In honor of Joey’s great and unsung kindness, KLJ also has a program for providing scholarships to high school students who show exemplary kindness. Given annually to students in the Central Bucks School District, KLJ awarded these scholarships to six students in 2021.

A nonprofit organization is only able to offer financial assistance and scholarships with proper funding, so of course KLJ is no different. Throughout the year, the Foundation holds different events and fundraisers to accomplish that goal. The most significant of these is the annual golf outing, most recently held on October 1, 2021. The funding for the scholarships rewarded to those Central Bucks students comes primarily through these events, especially the golf outing. Further fundraising for the foundation is acquired through merchandise sales and raffle baskets at their various banquets and events.

Part of the merchandise sold by the Kind Like Joey Foundation, or in conjunction with the foundation’s work to spread and promote kindness, are T-shirts sold by a company called inkBrave. On April 20, 2021, they completed a fundraiser for KLJ that saw over 550 shirts purchased and shipped to local supporters. Even today, inkBrave still produces and sells T-shirts, sweatshirts, tank tops, and other items for KLJ, with all the proceeds being donated directly to fund Kind Like Joey.

The loss of a child is unfortunately not as unique or rare as we would all like. And while the pain and grieving that comes with that are to be expected, not everyone is able to turn it around and use it as an inspiration to help others. Beyond simply helping people in the community, KLJ has a unique focus on the behavior of others, as its goal is to inspire kindness and caring rather than only giving financially. The Kind Like Joey Foundation is a unique force in our Central Bucks community for this reason. They have taken the formerly unsung, but not unfelt, selfless acts of a child and turned them into an opportunity to show everyone young and old how to be a little bit kinder in their everyday lives.

Billy Freeman is a Chalfont native and a student at Immaculata University majoring in communications and professional writing.

We welcome submissions for our website. Please contact us at kindlikejoey@gmail.com .