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Date: 3/14/2022
BELCHERTOWN - After Nick Boileau passed away in 2021 due to acute myeloid leukemia, his family established a scholarship in his name to help bring about change in people’s lives, dubbed Nick’s Waves of Change.
Jennifer Boileau, Nick’s mother, said he was funny and was completely devoted to academics.
“The first thing that comes to mind is that he was extremely funny and that is the thing we miss the most, his humor. He was very much into academics. He graduated from Belchertown, went to Western New England [University] for a degree in psychology, after that he went to the University of Michigan for epidemiology and graduated with his master’s there, during these times the whole cancer thing happened,” she said. “He was done at the University of Michigan, but he was still working there and we drove out there and all the way back to Massachusetts General Hospital in 22 hours.”
After receiving his diagnosis, the Boileaus explained that Nick continued his work into studies and remote learning as he worked toward his PhD before he passed.
“While he was in the hospital, he was still having meetings, still carrying on his work and still applying to grad schools and after Michigan he was accepted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for his PhD in clinical psychology,” she said. “He wanted to be able to do his own studies and you cannot get the funding for your own studies without having a PhD in something.”
Nick’s father, Glenn, said Nick’s academic trajectory changed his freshman year.
“Psychology was not his original major, criminal justice was. He took one class in psychology his freshman year and it changed his whole outlook; he had a great mentor at Western New England and everything in psychology Western New England offered he took,” he said.
While not mentioned during the interview, Jennifer followed up over email to say that Nick had a close relationship with his sister, Erica Lasewicz.
“The other thing I should have said, as it is probably one of the most significant aspects of Nick’s character, was his love for his family and most especially his sister, Erica. He was such a kind and caring person,” she wrote.
Glenn said Nick’s dog, Loki, helps to try to make things easier for his parents.
“He got us through a lot of it, he is an uncertified therapy dog, but he keeps us so busy we do not have time to think. That was one thing about Nick, being an epidemiologist, he knew the odds and because of the papers he wrote on caregiving he made it easier on us, he took the brunt of everything to keep our mind off it,” he said.
Glenn said the scholarship is based around one of Nick’s blog posts, which can be read online at https://nicksjourney0921.blogspot.com/.
“We are basically focusing this whole scholarship on ‘The Battle’ because some of the ending lines said that he may not have lived a long life but the little waves, even though you may not know where they are going, they could actually be a tsunami for somebody else that you never see the end result of,” he said. “It was his victory, that was how he wrote it.”
Jennifer explained the scholarship is open to all graduating seniors going to college or into a trade.
Glenn added that the scholarship is purely based on the response to the writing prompt and has nothing to do with grades or class rankings.
“On every application submitted we include the blog post we are asking them tell us what their waves may be or what they hope they can be just to get them thinking,” he said.
Jennifer said she hopes the current scholarship is just the beginning.
“Our thought is to do this scholarship, which is a $1,000 scholarship right now, and to potentially do a secondary one here in town or one in another nearby town. We both grew up in Granby so we know that a lot of support will probably come from Granby,” she said.
Glenn added that it was not possible to set up the secondary scholarship this year.
Before he passed, Jennifer said Nick wanted there to be a scholarship to remember him after speaking with his mentor, Jason Seacat.
“We talked about it when he was alive, and it was actually brought forth from his Western New England mentor and he said that would be a good way to remember him because he did not want to be forgotten. Then we had a couple of very close friends who wanted to help us launch a scholarship here in town, so we got together with them and created this organization,” she said.
Glenn said family friends Denise Walker, Michael Vogel, Chris and Kate Godfrey were some of the driving factors behind the scholarship.
“They basically put the fire under our butts to get this thing going,” he said.
When coming up with a fundraiser, Jennifer said she wanted to bring people together.
“We were trying to think of ways to raise funds and we thought about golf but that would be in the summer and we would not have the funds in time for the scholarship so we came up with the idea to do something where we can actually get the community together and since mask mandates are lifted and people are more willing to gather, we thought a spaghetti dinner would be a good way to get people together in a sort of more light-hearted and welcoming way,” she said.
Jennifer added she hopes the prompt for the scholarship application leads to changes in the applicants’ lives.
“By doing the writing prompt as part of the scholarship, we are hoping that not only the person who receives the scholarship, but those who do apply will read that, think about how they can make changes and whether the get the scholarship or not, hopefully implement that perspective in their own life,” she said. “Even if it is just one person.”
Glenn said he was looking forward to the first fundraiser.
“This is our first fundraiser so we do not know what to expect, I know we are going to grow and learn from our mistakes, but we are hoping people can come out and have a good time,” he said.
Nick’s Waves of Change’s first fundraiser takes place on April 27 at VFW Post 8428 at 41 Pelham Rd. in Belchertown. Tickets are $12 per adult and $8 per child and can be purchased by emailing info@nickswavesofchange.org or by calling Jennifer at 323-7821 or Walker at 626-7560.
Anyone interested can find more information about Nick and the scholarship online at https://nickswavesofchange.org/.