Our Mission

Our Mission.

Tom “Beezo” Brennan was 32 years old when he was killed in the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. An affable 1991 graduate of Boston College, Tom and his wife Jennifer, a 1998 BC Graduate School of Education alumna, had just moved into their first home with their seventeen-month old daughter, Catherine. Jennifer was expecting their son, Thomas Jr., who was born six weeks after Tom’s death. Tom is happily remembered for his impish grin, his hearty laugh, and his resolute independence.

Tom’s friends and family have established The Thomas M. Brennan Memorial Foundation to commemorate Tom’s life by recalling the zeal with which he lived it and the love he shared with others. The Foundation seeks to emulate Tom’s faith, integrity and love for his fellow man. Our goal is to make the Foundation as unique as the man who forever changed our lives.

The Foundation’s primary mission is funding a scholarship at Boston College in Tom’s memory for students requiring financial assistance. The Foundation also supports other worthy causes that are representative of those that Tom cherished during his life.

The Thomas M. Brennan Memorial Foundation asks for your generous support to permit us to keep Tom’s memory alive by helping those in need. Thank you.

About Us.

Shortly after 9/11, a group of Tom’s friends approached his family and asked what could be done in his memory. After much discussion, they settled upon creating a private non-profit that funds partial scholarships at Boston College, Tom’s alma mater. Incorporated in 2003, TMBMF began holding an annual September golf outing in the Boston area to raise money. The early years were certainly a learning process, but always with a positive spirit in Tom’s memory.  At the onset, it took a tremendous amount of help from many of Tom’s BC friends to get TMBMF off the ground. Many of them traveled from near and far each year to help organize and run the event, collecting items for our live and silent auctions, gathering friends and colleagues for foursomes at the golf outing. The event, like Tom, always had a happy and friendly spirit to it.

The first live auction included low cost and ridiculous items such as the TMBMF Foundation’s president washing your car in a wrestling singlet, but as it grew and matured as a Foundation, in the subsequent years TMBMF was able to offer more “respectable” items such as vacation homes and foursomes at private golf clubs. However, the golf tournament prize never changed; much like the green jacket at Augusta, a coveted (and hideous) homemade tie-dye jacket for each member of the winning foursome, an homage to Tom’s love of the Grateful Dead. TMBMF made a decision to stop holding the golf outing in 2011, and in 2012 began holding an annual scholar brunch for current and former TMBMF scholars in Boston. While this is not a fundraising event, it is a chance for the Board to take some time to meet with current and former TMBMF scholars, an event we all look forward to each year.

From the start TMBMF has been a family. Many of the former scholars have come back to serve on various committees, and two former scholars joined our Board of Directors in 2018. Now, over 22 years later, TMBMF is still a vital and thriving non-profit. Many, many people have helped along the way, some from the TMBMF inception, and some joining in more recent years. We have provided over $1.3 million dollars in financial aid to a total of 54 Boston College students, 38 of whom have graduated.