Julias Butterfly Foundation Information

Julia's Butterfly Foundation, Inc. is fulfilling a legacy and a need for terminally and chronically ill children at the same time. What binds 7 friends together in passion to help other children? In 2005, Maureen Bommer of Midland Park was fighting the insurance system for her daughter Julia, who suffered from Cerebral Palsy and a rare kidney disorder. Medicaid had cut Julia's in-home nursing hours by 30%, and Maureen was unable to get help from other sources to pay for the services. The gap would surely be a drain on the family finances. In that moment, Maureen realized there were other families facing the same tough situations, and never one to run from a fight, she vowed to take up their collective cause. Shortly after that battle began, Julia took a turn for the worse and passed away the day after Mother's Day, 2005, one week shy of her 7th birthday. In lieu of flowers, Maureen and her husband Stephen asked family and friends to donate to a foundation they would start in Julia's name to help other families caring for chronically and terminally ill children. Little did Maureen know that her idea would metamorphose into a thriving Bergen County charitable organization known as Julia's Butterfly Foundation. Adding to the family's unthinkable tragedy, just five months after Julia's death, Maureen, 42, who had been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer earlier that year, succumbed to the disease, leaving behind Stephen and four other young children, ranging in age from 9 to 2. Also grieving was an army of close friends who rallied to take up Maureen's mission. "We were all devastated," says Christine Callahan-Rasnake, President of the foundation. "It all happened so fast; we didn't know what to do. We just knew we wanted to breathe life into Maureen's legacy. Theirs was a friendship that had begun with volunteerism many years before, having met on a committee of the Junior League of Bergen County, planning their annual fundraiser, Festival of Trees. Adds Callahan-Rasnake, a Wyckoff resident: "Maureen always said, 'If ...