The Tom Coughlin Jay Fund hosted an open house Tuesday, Aug. 21 to celebrate the opening of its new headquarters location in Ponte Vedra Beach, which will allow the organization to be more efficient and have its full team in one place.
The new headquarters, provided rent-free by MountainStar Capital, is located at 5000 Sawgrass Village Circle, Suite 6 and features a conference room containing a high-tech webcam, a kitchen, an office space and more.
"It's going to allow us to better serve the families that we help," Jay Fund Executive Director Keli Coughlin said. "It's also going to maximize every dollar because we're rent free."
Coughlin said several donors helped with the design and layout of the office, along with flooring, cabinets and furniture. The best part about the new location, Coughlin noted, is that the organization now has enough space to accommodate the whole team.
"It was a lot smaller in the old location and we didn't have the technology even to connect with our New Jersey and New York team," she said. "We have two people that work in New Jersey so this allows us to web conference and talk to them whenever we need to. It also means all of our team can work here at the same time rather than us having to juggle, like 'oh you come in on Mondays, you come in Tuesdays because there's only room for one desk.’"
Coughlin added that it's easier to work together when the team is situated in one location.
"We can hear what's happening across the program," she said. "We can help each other, pitch in with ideas and better serve the families tackling childhood cancer."
Founded in 1996, the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Foundation was created in honor of Jay McGillis — a football player who developed leukemia while playing on Coach Coughlin's team at Boston College. In the eight months between McGillis’ diagnosis and the day he lost his battle with cancer, the Coughlin family witnessed the physical, emotional and financial stress the illness caused for the McGillis family. As a result, Coughlin started the Jay Fund Foundation in McGillis’ honor to help families cope with the financial strain of battling cancer. Since its inception, the foundation has helped over 5,000 families and given away over $9.8 million in grants.
