Chris Joe Family Memorial Fund
Donation protected
The Christopher Joe Family Fund:
Like many families around the globe, our family listened to COVID-19-related deaths and the number of new cases, praying for the death toll to cease and the virus would not come into our family.
It did.
We lost a cherished member of our family on Friday, April 3, 2020 at 9:59 a.m. from COVID-19.
Allow Us to Introduce You to Our Chris:
Christopher (Chris) Joe came into our family eighteen years ago in 2002 when he started dating our sister Marva. They worked together at HSBC Bank: she was a bank teller, and he was a small business banker. He breezed through our family’s vetting process with his genuine smile, his ability to find humor in everything, and his love of family. Within weeks, he was making jokes with our brothers and debating which sports teams and players were the best. He was helping our parents with whatever they needed, and he stood with our brothers welcoming other men into the family.
Over time, we learned that Chris lost his mother at a young age and was supporting his father to stay in a Brooklyn apartment. He loved his father and tended to his needs until his death in 2006 from an infection caused by negligence. Being an only child, Chris gravitated to our big family and helped us realize that although we were great in numbers, he was the missing piece to making us whole.
Chris graduated from Martin Luther High School in 1992 and studied Accounting at Oral Roberts University. He was a man of excellence who worked extremely hard in business and his personal life. He and Marva married in 2011 and had four beautiful and incredibly intelligent boys: Christian (15), Marcus (9), Caden (7), and Maxwell (5).
After working in banking for over fifteen years, he found it difficult to secure employment in finance. In his last role, he was a Relationship Manager at Astoria Bank before being laid off. He continued to apply for career opportunities while taking care of his boys. He took great pride in caring for them. Every day, he cooked their meals, prepared them for school, took his boys to basketball, karate, and swimming practice, and helped them with their homework. He did not believe in doing anything perfunctory, but gave his best to everything he did. He worked hard to instill this value within his sons and in young boys in his community he volunteered to coach basketball. He even supported our sister through a career change when she decided to leave banking to study and become a Respiratory Therapist. Though it was hard for him to maintain hope in securing his own career in finance, he unrelentingly supported his family to realize their dreams and his hopes for them.
The two of them were unstoppable in their efforts to give our nephews the best life possible.
What happened to Our Beloved Chris:
In the middle of March, Chris got sick. We all thought it was a common cold and listened to experts who told the general public to stay indoors and monitor symptoms. Chris, Marva, and their eldest son Christian monitored his symptoms. Giving him home remedies and prescription drugs, Marva, Christian, and us did not know he would be bedridden for over a week.
This is when his symptoms escalated quickly. He struggled to breathe and was very weak. He was so afraid. Having lost his father in a hospital from a routine procedure just 16 years before, he did not want to leave his wife and boys. If he went to the hospital, he told our sister he was afraid he might not be back.
Around 11:00 P.M. on Friday, March 27, Marva drove Chris, barely able to walk, to a hospital. He was intubated with a high level of oxygen and sedated. We received good and bad news on alternate days, praying and keeping our hopes up that he would pull through. Then, we learned he tested positive with COVID-19. Soon afterwards, his kidneys failed, unable to flush out toxins, and he needed 100% oxygen to sustain him. He was fighting for his life and for his family.
Unfortunately, on Friday, April 3, 2020, we received word that he went into cardiac arrest, and, in less than two hours, we learned that our sister’s husband, our nephews’ father, our brother, our uncle, and our friend passed away from complications of COVID-19.
The news feels like a gut punch, sucking out our oxygen and sapping our strength. Our hearts ripped, tugged, and mangled cannot compare with our sister Marva’s and our nephews’ (Christian, Marcus, Caden, and Maxwell’s) pain and grief.
Your Support is Needed:
During this time, our family wraps our arms around our sister Marva and our nephews. We are helping them as best as we can, but we need extra help with your donations to raise $35,000. This will bear them up during this difficult time as they face an unexpected loss.
Why Your Support is Important:
Our sister Marva Gibbs-Joe is now a widow. Our nephews Christian, Marcus, Caden, and Maxwell are now without a father. While confronting this new reality, Marva and our nephews will need your help to cover their expenses as they grieve and grapple with such a great upheaval.
Marva is the sole income earner in her family of five indefinitely. Without Chris’s presence, Marva will have to manage the bills, expenses, and maintain a semblance of normalcy in her boys' lives. With your help, you will alleviate their worries and bring comfort to their hearts with your in-kind donations.
Words from the Gibbs, Joseph, Spencer, Fontana, and Gayle family of Who Chris was to Us:
Marcia Gibbs: Chris was a wonderful brother, uncle, husband and father who everyone loved. I loved how much of a soldier he was for his family--such a great guy.
Fabian Joseph: Chris was a great father, great husband, and great friend. Rest my friend.
Wayne Gibbs: Chris, you are a role model to your kids and everyone else. Chris was a great husband, father, and brother to me. You will be dearly missed. Sleep in peace.
Wayne Gibbs Jr.: Chris, my big dawg, I love you. You will be deeply missed. Continue to watch over the family.
Todd Fontana: Chris demonstrated what it means to be an active father and loving husband by simply being present. This is the legacy he set forth in me and others for generations to come. Chris also opened the door of his heart and welcomed me, an outsider who married his wife’s sister, into the camp. Thank you for giving me a chance. I cherish each conversation and interaction we had.
Margaret Fontana: This soldier right here --father, husband, brother-in-law, friend, and angel--lost his life fighting. Our family is beyond shaken and numb. He had so much joy and light in his smile. He was at every game, graduation, and award ceremony. Christopher Joe taught them about putting forth excellence. He will always be remembered as a dad like no other. Thank you, Chris, for being an amazing father to my nephews. We all got them! They will know what family is and remember what you taught them. We will miss you so much, Chris! ♥️
Kirk & Beverly Gayle: My brother Chris could bring a smile to anyone. If you met him on Monday, y'all would be best friends on Tuesday. RIP my brother.
Jamaal Spencer: I first met Chris when he, Marva, and I worked together at the bank. He was not only an amazing father and husband, but he was also able to find the light side of a situation and give everyone a much needed laugh. I'll miss laughing with him.
Michelle Gibbs-Spencer: Chris married my sister-twin Marva. Being one year apart, we are close in everything. I witnessed Chris’s unrelenting love for my sister and my nephews. He was even instrumental in helping my sister Marva set me up with my husband Jamaal. He cared that much for everyone’s happiness that he was willing to make it come true. His dedication to his marriage and boys is unparalleled.
Like many families around the globe, our family listened to COVID-19-related deaths and the number of new cases, praying for the death toll to cease and the virus would not come into our family.
It did.
We lost a cherished member of our family on Friday, April 3, 2020 at 9:59 a.m. from COVID-19.
Allow Us to Introduce You to Our Chris:
Christopher (Chris) Joe came into our family eighteen years ago in 2002 when he started dating our sister Marva. They worked together at HSBC Bank: she was a bank teller, and he was a small business banker. He breezed through our family’s vetting process with his genuine smile, his ability to find humor in everything, and his love of family. Within weeks, he was making jokes with our brothers and debating which sports teams and players were the best. He was helping our parents with whatever they needed, and he stood with our brothers welcoming other men into the family.
Over time, we learned that Chris lost his mother at a young age and was supporting his father to stay in a Brooklyn apartment. He loved his father and tended to his needs until his death in 2006 from an infection caused by negligence. Being an only child, Chris gravitated to our big family and helped us realize that although we were great in numbers, he was the missing piece to making us whole.
Chris graduated from Martin Luther High School in 1992 and studied Accounting at Oral Roberts University. He was a man of excellence who worked extremely hard in business and his personal life. He and Marva married in 2011 and had four beautiful and incredibly intelligent boys: Christian (15), Marcus (9), Caden (7), and Maxwell (5).
After working in banking for over fifteen years, he found it difficult to secure employment in finance. In his last role, he was a Relationship Manager at Astoria Bank before being laid off. He continued to apply for career opportunities while taking care of his boys. He took great pride in caring for them. Every day, he cooked their meals, prepared them for school, took his boys to basketball, karate, and swimming practice, and helped them with their homework. He did not believe in doing anything perfunctory, but gave his best to everything he did. He worked hard to instill this value within his sons and in young boys in his community he volunteered to coach basketball. He even supported our sister through a career change when she decided to leave banking to study and become a Respiratory Therapist. Though it was hard for him to maintain hope in securing his own career in finance, he unrelentingly supported his family to realize their dreams and his hopes for them.
The two of them were unstoppable in their efforts to give our nephews the best life possible.
What happened to Our Beloved Chris:
In the middle of March, Chris got sick. We all thought it was a common cold and listened to experts who told the general public to stay indoors and monitor symptoms. Chris, Marva, and their eldest son Christian monitored his symptoms. Giving him home remedies and prescription drugs, Marva, Christian, and us did not know he would be bedridden for over a week.
This is when his symptoms escalated quickly. He struggled to breathe and was very weak. He was so afraid. Having lost his father in a hospital from a routine procedure just 16 years before, he did not want to leave his wife and boys. If he went to the hospital, he told our sister he was afraid he might not be back.
Around 11:00 P.M. on Friday, March 27, Marva drove Chris, barely able to walk, to a hospital. He was intubated with a high level of oxygen and sedated. We received good and bad news on alternate days, praying and keeping our hopes up that he would pull through. Then, we learned he tested positive with COVID-19. Soon afterwards, his kidneys failed, unable to flush out toxins, and he needed 100% oxygen to sustain him. He was fighting for his life and for his family.
Unfortunately, on Friday, April 3, 2020, we received word that he went into cardiac arrest, and, in less than two hours, we learned that our sister’s husband, our nephews’ father, our brother, our uncle, and our friend passed away from complications of COVID-19.
The news feels like a gut punch, sucking out our oxygen and sapping our strength. Our hearts ripped, tugged, and mangled cannot compare with our sister Marva’s and our nephews’ (Christian, Marcus, Caden, and Maxwell’s) pain and grief.
Your Support is Needed:
During this time, our family wraps our arms around our sister Marva and our nephews. We are helping them as best as we can, but we need extra help with your donations to raise $35,000. This will bear them up during this difficult time as they face an unexpected loss.
Why Your Support is Important:
Our sister Marva Gibbs-Joe is now a widow. Our nephews Christian, Marcus, Caden, and Maxwell are now without a father. While confronting this new reality, Marva and our nephews will need your help to cover their expenses as they grieve and grapple with such a great upheaval.
Marva is the sole income earner in her family of five indefinitely. Without Chris’s presence, Marva will have to manage the bills, expenses, and maintain a semblance of normalcy in her boys' lives. With your help, you will alleviate their worries and bring comfort to their hearts with your in-kind donations.
Words from the Gibbs, Joseph, Spencer, Fontana, and Gayle family of Who Chris was to Us:
Marcia Gibbs: Chris was a wonderful brother, uncle, husband and father who everyone loved. I loved how much of a soldier he was for his family--such a great guy.
Fabian Joseph: Chris was a great father, great husband, and great friend. Rest my friend.
Wayne Gibbs: Chris, you are a role model to your kids and everyone else. Chris was a great husband, father, and brother to me. You will be dearly missed. Sleep in peace.
Wayne Gibbs Jr.: Chris, my big dawg, I love you. You will be deeply missed. Continue to watch over the family.
Todd Fontana: Chris demonstrated what it means to be an active father and loving husband by simply being present. This is the legacy he set forth in me and others for generations to come. Chris also opened the door of his heart and welcomed me, an outsider who married his wife’s sister, into the camp. Thank you for giving me a chance. I cherish each conversation and interaction we had.
Margaret Fontana: This soldier right here --father, husband, brother-in-law, friend, and angel--lost his life fighting. Our family is beyond shaken and numb. He had so much joy and light in his smile. He was at every game, graduation, and award ceremony. Christopher Joe taught them about putting forth excellence. He will always be remembered as a dad like no other. Thank you, Chris, for being an amazing father to my nephews. We all got them! They will know what family is and remember what you taught them. We will miss you so much, Chris! ♥️
Kirk & Beverly Gayle: My brother Chris could bring a smile to anyone. If you met him on Monday, y'all would be best friends on Tuesday. RIP my brother.
Jamaal Spencer: I first met Chris when he, Marva, and I worked together at the bank. He was not only an amazing father and husband, but he was also able to find the light side of a situation and give everyone a much needed laugh. I'll miss laughing with him.
Michelle Gibbs-Spencer: Chris married my sister-twin Marva. Being one year apart, we are close in everything. I witnessed Chris’s unrelenting love for my sister and my nephews. He was even instrumental in helping my sister Marva set me up with my husband Jamaal. He cared that much for everyone’s happiness that he was willing to make it come true. His dedication to his marriage and boys is unparalleled.
Fundraising team: Chris, Marva, Christian, Marcus, Caden, Maxwell (5)
Margaret Fontana
Organizer
Springfield Gardens, NY
Beverly Gayle (Sister and person handling funeral expenses)
Beneficiary
Beverly Gayle
Team member
Michelle Gibbs-Spencer
Team member
Todd Fontana
Team member
Marcia Gibbs
Team member
