By Maisha Hasan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The holiday season often brings moments of gathering and reflection, as well as remembrance. For Ralph and Susan Sgro, that reflection has taken shape over recent months through a community fund via Burlington Community Foundation (BCF), honouring their daughter, Lindsay Alicia (Sgro) Bridge, rooted in the interests and values that defined her life.
Lindsay’s story was a big story, too big to fit into sentences, expectations, or limits. At least, that’s how Ralph and Susan can best start describing their daughter, who passed away in 2024 at the age of just 44.
“She brought people together with her enthusiasm for life. She was a vibrant, vivacious, positive personality. She had an infectious smile, always full of laughter and joy. People were drawn to Lindsay,” Ralph said.
Lindsay is described as a great friend and mother, always “giving good advice, always listening well,” said Ralph.
Lindsay was raised in Burlington. Growing up, she’d always had a knack for business, graduating from Western University’s Richard Ivey School of Business, and working at Maple Leaf Foods for eight years.
“She was successful [at Maple Leaf Foods], but wanted to be in her own business. She became an owner-operator for a McDonald’s restaurant. She owned five McDonald’s restaurants in Toronto, one being the flagship restaurant for Canada,” Ralph said.
But Lindsay’s business success wasn’t the only way to define her.
“She loved business, absolutely loved it, just like she loved music and dance. She was just so well-rounded,” Susan recalled.
Lindsay danced competitively in her youth, carrying that love with her when she taught tap and dance to as many people as she could reach, including seniors in Toronto. She also loved to perform in the theatre — just as much as she loved going to musicals and live shows as an audience member.
It was the intersection of Lindsay’s interests, from the arts to giving back to the community, to Burlington itself, that inspired the Sgros to develop the “Lindsay’s Loves Fund.” Through the fund, the family hopes to expand access to arts programming for children and youth, allowing Lindsay’s love of creativity and community to reach generations yet to come.
“We wanted to honour Lindsay, share her passion, her spirit, her energy with others in the community,” explained Susan.
The Sgro family has a long history of giving back to the community, working with the Burlington Community Foundation for as fundholders since 2007. Lindsay herself worked with multiple charities, notably the Ronald McDonald House, leading to the spearheading of the Ronald Room in Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.
When the Sgros began working once more with the Burlington Community Foundation to honour Lindsay, BCF proved itself a strong and compassionate partner, instrumental in building a fund that befitted Lindsay’s legacy.
“We talked about the things that we wanted to donate, where we wanted to donate in her name. We knew that there were specific things, areas, and organizations that we wanted to support. When we met with Megan [Tregunno, of BCF] on a number of occasions, she tied them all together and organized them for us…it all made it all come together so easily and so naturally,” said Ralph.
Megan Tregunno is the CEO of the Burlington Community Foundation. With many personal house calls and meetings at the Sgro house, Tregunno helped develop the fund’s structure.
“Those first few conversations were to learn about Lindsay,” Tregunno recalled. “What [the Sgros] want to support and accomplish, and if they’d like other people involved or not, or is this something the family is just going to do on their own. After learning about their objectives, I was able to make recommendations on the different types of funds or approaches that might align with their goals.”
Creating a legacy, one that would honour and remember Lindsay’s generosity, love of the arts, and ability to bring people together, was important to the Sgros. Tregunno noted that the Sgros “wanted to organize it in a seamless way that would allow people to learn about Lindsay and have a streamlined message around her legacy instead of making donations all over the place, just from them and their name, they wanted it to have an identity under Lindsay.”
The Sgros made a million-dollar commitment to the Lindsay’s Loves Fund to launch it immediately. Like many donor-advised funds at BCF, it is designed to support grants over time, ensuring Lindsay’s legacy has a long-term impact on the community. It joins the Ralph and Susan Sgro Family Fund, a long‑standing charitable fund the family has held with BCF that benefits local charities serving children.
“The family learns about organizations and then decides which organizations fit with the vision of the fund,” Tregunno noted.
This goes for any family or person looking to start a fund with the Burlington Community Foundation; the many local charities whose services have become more well-used in the past few years often find themselves with funding gaps that BCF tries to fill with help from community donors.
“We have one particular program called our ‘Community Granting Program.’ This is where charities apply for funding, and we award grants to them. We learn a lot through that process. We will receive over 60 different applications from local charities, then have a committee of community volunteers and our staff team that adjudicate the process, and then award grants to these organizations. If we can award a certain portion, but we receive asks for a larger amount, there’s a gap in what we can support. So we can bring those ideas to our donors and fundholders and community members and say, ‘Here are these great projects,’” Tregunno said.
BCF and the Sgros’ goal with the Lindsay’s Loves Fund is to expose as many children to the arts as possible.
“It’s not necessary to turn them into professional artists. It’s to introduce art as a medium in their lives to help create joy, give them new experiences, help build human connections with other community members and expose them to that early on so that it can become a part of their lives. It’s to encourage community connections and to introduce them to the joys of art.” Tregunno explained.
The Sgros transformed their loss into a powerful and lasting remembrance of their daughter, choosing a dragonfly as the emblem of Lindsay’s Loves Fund.
“We chose the dragonfly because of what it symbolizes. Dragonflies are the keepers of dreams. They symbolize change, they inspire creativity and remind us that anything is possible. So this fund, as children and youth receive grants to be exposed to the arts or to be helped at Ronald House or a chance to go to camp, it’s just a wonderful lifetime experience.”
For more information on Lindsay’s Loves Fund or to donate, visit the Burlington Community Foundation website.
Correction notice: this article has been edited to reflect the correct name of the Ralph and Susan Family Fund. Our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
