Anne Maynard Memorial Fund

As many already know, Anne Elizabeth Maynard passed away suddenly on Saturday, October 29th, 2016 at 41 years of age. She was a loving wife and mother, sister, daughter and dear friend to many. 

She will be remembered as a woman who was always laughing, a passionate photographer, a dedicated mother to 4 children, a wife who put up with far more than she probably should have and a friend who was always willing to listen and help.

In addition, she spent much of her life selflessly doing things for others. Some of the most memorable examples include:

Two days before Thanksgiving 2009, when Anne found out that the 12 year old down the street lost her father suddenly, Anne helped organize donations to make sure she had a great Christmas. Hours and hours were spent shopping for toys and wrapping presents. Anne even went over to the girl's house on Christmas Eve to put them all under the tree so the girl could wake up to a visit from Santa.

In 2013, upon hearing of a local family who had just lost nearly everything in a house fire. Anne jumped at the chance to help in any way she could. Over the course of collecting donations and organizing help, Anne and her family became very close to a family who had been total strangers mere months before, a friendship that exists to this day. 

Just last month, one of Anne's best friends, someone that had been dear to her since childhood had a house fire. Within hours of the first tearful phone call, and after making sure no one was hurt, Anne started making a list of things to get her friend's children for Christmas so as to lighten the load on the family in their trying time.

Even after her passing, she has continued to help others as an organ donor. Her family has been overjoyed with hearing the news today that her gift has already directly helped another family, potentially saving the life of their loved one and hopefully extending that person's life for decades to come. We are also extremely hopeful that in the near future countless more will be given the chance to have extra years and even decades of good health and happiness with the ones they love.

She leaves behind a husband, a teenaged son and three younger children. Just three weeks ago, we all had a fantastic day at a local fall festival that has become a family tradition. In addition to enjoying watching her children play in a corn maze, run around on walls built out of hay and play some carnival games, she was ecstatic about finding and bringing home some incredible looking pink colored pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. She even insisted that all of the little ones get their faces painted.

For Halloween, her younger children dressed up in their costumes and posed for photos, and for the first time in their lives, Anne was not the one behind the camera telling them to stop fidgeting and look at the camera. As they grow, surely there will be fond memories of how much fuss she made over taking as many pictures of them as she possible could.

Going forward, we are trying to pick up the pieces of a family that has forever changed. The outpouring of good thoughts, prayers and kind words have been overwhelming and extremely helpful to her family in this dark time. At the suggestion and insistence of the many people that have asked, this fund has been created to help lighten the burden that her family now finds themselves under.

This will be a very rough holiday season for our family, Anne had an incredible passion about decorating for the holidays. It will be made even more difficult because three of the four children have birthdays in December and January. As if that wasn't enough, Anne's birthday is on Christmas Eve and we will surely have a very tough time as we remember all of the great things about her over the years. One additional comfort for those close to her is knowing that she is finally close to her beloved baby Jacob.

Help is greately appreciated, donations will go towards family needs and arrangements in these very trying times.