Charity Begins at Home
When Kelly and Patrick Robson
established the Robson Family Fund as part of the Niagara Community Foundation’s Wainfleet Fund in 2012, they did it out of passion for their community and a way to give back.
Patrick passed away in August of 2024 after a short and valiant battle with cancer. This tremendous loss was shocking to his family, friends, colleagues and students. To honour his memory, many chose to donate to their family fund, which doubled the original size of the endowment that will benefit Wainfleet in perpetuity.
Seeing the way in which Patrick’s legacy is being honoured has touched Kelly and her family deeply in the midst of their sorrow and grief. The outpouring of generosity and kindness to the fund “overwhelms us with gratitude, and is a testament to the many lives my husband touched”, says Kelly.
[We are] overwhelmed with gratitude, and it is a testament to my husband as a person.
Kelly Robson
Patrick humbly served the community both at the forefront and behind the scenes: as a politician, an educator, an environmentalist, a civil servant, and a volunteer. His roots were deep in Niagara in general and Wainfleet in particular, as it is where he and Kelly settled and built their life on a property that holds much family history.
The Robson Family Fund started small and grew slowly, meant to benefit their community and inspire others to do the same, Kelly said. You don’t need to be wealthy. Just do what you can to make your community “a better place to live, work and play.” “The fund has given us the opportunity to support the charitable organizations we value, not only today but for the future of the community.”