Photo provided by Bryan's House

Bryan’s House‘s Executive Director David Thomas has been selected to serve on the education subcommittee for the Task Force for Children with Special Needs.

Then on Sunday, November 5, 2006, as she was crossing a street in Hollywood with Highland Park High School graduate/boyfriend Luke Coffee, a silver Toyota Corolla mowed through the intersection, killing Elizabeth and seriously injuring Luke.

Most parents would have been devastated, but Patti and Larry Toon were far from most parents. They felt Elizabeth’s ability to influence and help others should continue. With this goal in mind, the Elizabeth Toon Charities (ETC) was established in 2007 to benefit organizations that support children with terminal and chronic illnesses, as well as those with physical disabilities.

So how is the charity doing?  This past May the group’s fundraising efforts hit the $1,000,000 mark.

To help supervise the development and implementation of the strategic goals and objectives of ETC, Jessica Gates has been hired to serve as its first executive director.

Is that the end of the story? Heck, no!

You may wonder just how Jessica was selected. Her credentials were very good including having worked at Fan Fares. But the tipping point was her personal interest in ETC. 

According to Jessica, “I first met Elizabeth when we were just little kids.  My father, John Gates, and Elizabeth’s father have worked together at The Staubach Company for over 15 years. Elizabeth and I would see each other at the company parties and we developed a friendship as we were the same age. As we got older, we continued to see each other at different high school events. I was at Ursuline and Elizabeth at Highland Park. We also shared a common love for the Texas Longhorns. Elizabeth lived directly below me (at UT-Austin) my sophomore year and it was always comforting to me to see her familiar face walking down the hallway. 

“After her tragic death, the Toon family asked me to be a part of the charity, since I was working for an event planning company. My answer was quickly that I would love to be a part of it.”

Initially his interest lay in literacy. After all he has multiple degrees from SMU including a law degree. Eventually he realized that a stumbling block to literacy was vision. As Ed put it, “It’s all about connecting the dots. A child must be able to see to learn. If vision problems aren’t corrected at a young age, children fall behind and may never catch up. That’s when they tend to drop out of school or land in the justice system.”

History note: Ed headed up Communities Foundation of Texas when they got the funding from the late Mabel Peters Caruth and built that spanking, shiny headquarters on Caruth at Central just south of NorthPark.

Last month our friends over at D CEO got to know Dr. John Carrier, president of Dallas-based Essilor of America, Inc., which created the Foundation.