Dear Friends of Ryan Coffey, It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a year since Ryan Coffey passed away. If you’re like me, you probably have trouble talking in any meaningful way about the incalculable loss that has colored so many of our hours since August 2012. Ryan will always be with us in the way he influenced our lives, as we now carry within us tokens of the light and joy and honesty and compassion that Ryan expressed with an intensity so few people in the world possess. While these tacit, shared mementos of Ryan’s time on earth will always exist among those who loved him, a few of us have been working to honor Ryan’s memory in a more tangible, and ultimately more lasting, way through what we’ve come to call the “Ryan Coffey Project.” This project is three-fold, integrating a few of the themes that frequently occupied Ryan’s thoughts, work, and waking hours: poetry, trees, and carpentry. The first stage of the Ryan Coffee Project is already complete: in a prominent place on the Bellarmine University campus, there is now a young Kentucky Coffee Tree “growing toward the light,” as Ryan once wrote. Kentucky Coffee Trees are tall, branchful, and provide good shade when full-grown—we are glad that this particular tree was both donated and installed by the proprietors of Louisville’s Greenhaven Tree Service, whose love and respect for all things leafy would have resonated deeply with Ryan. Stage two of the Ryan Coffey Project involves the collecting and publishing of a festschrift, or a small volume of poetry dedicated to a literary figure who has recently passed away. We are nearly finished editing and designing this book, which includes some of Ryan’s best poetry, plus some contributions from his former Bellarmine professors and poet friends. We plan to send the festschrift to a local press for printing, where we believe the crafting of the book will be handled with more care than at a large corporate printing facility. We plan to “launch" this publication with a reading and picnic this coming Labor Day weekend. Since it will be a full year after Ryan’s memorial service last summer, we plan to again share stories and fellowship before heading off to camp for a few days in the Red River Gorge. All are invited to participate in these activities, but if you can’t make it, please send us your address so we can send you the book. For the final phase of the project, we will install a wooden bench beneath the young tree at Bellarmine, along with a plaque that will feature both a few words about Ryan as well as a QR code linking to a digital version of the festschrift. We hope that for years to come, students, staff, and faculty at Bellarmine will use this bench and the shade of the tree to rest, reflect, and read Ryan’s poetry. I hope that you share my enthusiasm for honoring Ryan in these ways. A lot of folks have put much time and energy into making the Ryan Coffey Project happen, but we of course need financial contributions to see the project to completion. We have estimated that we can accomplish all of the activities described above with a high degree of quality by raising a net total of $2,000; (we have already raised close to a quarter of that sum). If you would like to contribute to the Ryan Coffey Project, we would be most grateful for a donation in any amount, which you can make online at ryancoffeyfund.weebly/ (just type in the address, click the “Donate” button, and a secure PayPal portal will open), or by sending a check to Chuck Hatten. (Chuck Hatten and Frederick Smock are both English professors at Bellarmine—together, they set up the bank account for the Ryan Coffey Fund, and have been wonderful friends throughout the various activities undertaken to support the Coffey family and honor Ryan.) If you are frequently on or near Bellarmine’s campus, you can reach Chuck by going to Alumni Hall and dropping by his mailbox or office. If you live outside of Louisville or aren’t on campus often, his home address is: 1912 Rutherford Avenue, Louisville, KY, 40205. As a side note, we are hoping to have most donations received by the end of July, although we’ll surely find a good use for any funds received after that time, or that are over and above what we need for the project—extra funding (God willing!) will most likely be donated to The Cure Starts Now, an organization that Ryan’s partner, Erika Hajiantoni, has been active in supporting since Ryan’s death. Whether you donate online or via check, please make sure to include your contact information along with your contribution, so we know how to reach you for future events and can send you a copy of the festschrift. (Please do get in touch with me via email regardless of whether you ‘have a haypenny,’ as they say—we would like to send you info about the upcoming Labor Day weekend picnic and send you a copy of the festschrift either way.) In thanks, love, and solidarity, Emily Ruppel Edwards Bellarmine ‘08 emily@emilyruppel
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 11:37:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015