The Power to Turn Grief Into Purpose

Kristen Coe is Executive Director of the Hunter Quigley Coe Be The Boat Fund.

By Kristen Coe

June 7, 2025 marked 10 years since we lost our son Hunter to suicide.

Our family’s “party of six” became a “party of five”, and that sense of ruptured identity was immediate and profoundly dislocating.  Looking back – filled with its “what ifs” – was painful; looking forward – into the occluded unknown – was nearly paralyzing. 

As a family, we stepped tentatively forward and fell more than a few times until we gradually made forward movement.  It was healing to focus on the memory of a son and brother who walked alongside others in challenging moments.  Hunter’s generosity of spirit guided us.

On February 26, 2016, on what would have been Hunter’s 25th birthday, we launched a foundation to deliver transformative mental health services to Chicagoland youth. Named the Hunter Quigley Coe Be
The Boat Fund, after a prayer read at Hunter’s funeral, the fund captures Hunter’s willingness to help others without reservation.

Since its inception, Be The Boat has funded over $400,000 in grants to organizations which focus on underserved children, aiming to positively impact a child’s trajectory with a discrete and well-timed intervention. 

We’ve underwritten swim and sailing lessons; pet, art and gross-motor skills therapy; connections to direct behavioral services; yearlong 1:1 and group tutoring; and mental health support through arts maker spaces.  Our goal: to meet children where they are, to affirm their intrinsic value and to inspire them on their own path to healing.  This is critical, hard work.  

 As a former non-profit exec, some of the work is familiar.  But the mission – to operationalize our son’s instinct to be of service – is wholly unique, and we feel blessed that in doing so we can remember Hunter for the life he lived rather than the life he lost.

Michele WeldonComment