Gaudreau Family 5K: Jane Gaudreau helps fundraise to provide new playground for students with special needs

Gaudreau fundraiser raises money for new playground for children with special needs

Jane Gaudreau, the mother of late brothers Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau, is helping the special needs children at the school where she works who are in need of a new playground. Here's how she's doing it.

WESTVILLE, N.J. - Matty and Johnny Gaudreau volunteered at this special needs school when they were teenagers. 

Their mother works here, and their grandmother did as well. There’s a full circle connection now to benefit the school and the grieving family.

What we know:

Jane Gaudreau has experienced nearly insurmountable grief. She’s the mother of NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matty Gaudreau. Beyond the family’s loss, their untimely deaths in August of 2024 sent a ripple of shock and sadness in the hockey world. The brothers were struck and killed while cycling in South Jersey on the eve of their sister’s wedding, and the driver was arrested for DUI and manslaughter.

"Back at that time, I was so distraught and so not really thinking," Jane said.

Eight months later, Jane is trying to redirect her grief into goodness. She works at Archbishop Damiano, as did her late mother, because Jane’s brother was disabled. Both Johnny and Matty volunteered here, and their sisters worked here as well. The regional school serves 125 intellectually and disabled students and was trying to raise money for a new playground.

 A family friend suggested to Jane, "Why don’t we do a 5K to raise money for the playground?"

And that’s exactly what Jane did. She set up a committee and planned a 5K to move, replace, and reinvent a special needs playground.

"We’ve been fundraising for this for four years, plugging money, lots of constituents, lots of people willing to donate to us, but this just propels it so much quicker," said Michele McCloskey, principal of Archbishop Damiano Special Needs School.

News of the 5K event and festival spread quickly. The race at Washington Lake Park, near the hockey rink where the brothers played, was capped at a thousand participants and filled up immediately. There’s a virtual event as well. Jane hopes to help raise the final funds to get the playground built by the end of this year.

"I’m just hoping that the boys will be looking down and just be so happy that we’re doing something like this in their honor. I know they’d be proud," Jane said.

"I’m just so honored to pay it forward, a kind of moment that’s so much good can come out of this tragedy," Michele added.

You can still take part in the virtual event here.

As for the fatal accident, Sean Higgins, the man charged in the case, is still behind bars waiting for his trial.