October 3, 2024 · 0 Comments
By JAMES MATTHEWS
Hope remains in Heidi Ferguson’s absence.
It’s the hope that comes from the youth education initiatives that benefitted from funding raised by the annual Heidi’s Walk for Hope run by Orangeville’s Family Transition Place (FTP) and, before that, the Ferguson Memorial Walk held by Penny and Gus Bogner, Heidi’s parents.
The FTP announced earlier this year that the memorial walk in honour of Heidi Lee Ferguson had reached its last mile. But, to keep her memory alive, a bronze plaque in her honour has been installed on granite outside FTP’s building at 20 Bredin Pkwy.
Orangeville police responded to a domestic dispute at Ferguson’s home on Westdale Avenue in September 2009. After officers left, her estranged husband, Hugh, returned and shot her, before turning the gun on himself hours later inside his Camilla home.
The first laces were knotted to walk in her honour in 2012. Since that first memorial outing, as much as $120,000 was raised by the Bogner family to support FTP’s largely unfunded youth education programs.
From 2020 to 2023, when FTP assumed the helm of the annual walk, another $75,000 was raised.
Those programs are designed to teach children in Grades 5 to 12 what healthy relationships are about. Programs increased awareness about domestic violence.
But, in all honesty, the memorial walk and then the walk for hope were never about FTP, said Nora Kennedy, the former executive director at FTP. Rather, it was about the Bogner family and their daughter.
“That money has made a huge difference in the lives of youth in our community,” Kennedy said, and added that she hopes there are many families who never have such an experience.
FTP’s new executive director is Lynette Pole-Langdon.
Kennedy thanked Penny and Gus Bogner for the tireless support they gave FTP and their steadfast efforts to keep their daughter’s memory alive.
“Penny was a force of nature,” Kennedy said.
The Bogner matriarch was adamant that money be raised to support programming for both women and men.
“So that both men and woman had an idea of where to go when they needed help,” she said. “It takes superhumans to take such a tragedy and do something positive with it.”
Troy Bogner, Heidi’s brother, said his parents would face the trauma and the pain every year. But bringing family and friends together every year helped them in a way to embrace their loss.
“I hope you understand how much the acknowledgment means to the family,” he said.