BMM funds scholarships through the Liann Bordeau-Buck foundation

For Donna Bordeau, the loss of her only daughter inspired the need for ‘a reason to be here’

By Jane Kaufman, The Berkshire Eagle April 14, 2023

PITTSFIELD — For Donna Bordeau, the loss of her daughter, Liann Bordeau-Buck, five days after childbirth Jan. 1, 2017, left a gaping hole that has not yet been filled.

“She’s my only girl, and she was my only child,” Bordeau said.

She tears up when she recalls her daughter’s final days in the hospital, even now, more than six years after her death. Following giving birth, her daughter’s initial complaints of pain were written off as abdominal gas. Days later, a strep infection was diagnosed and following major surgery at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, sepsis set in taking her life.

Liann’s child, Wyatt Buck, is a kindergartner at St. Agnes School in Dalton.

Photos of him hang in Bordeau’s dining room, across from the collage Liann made in childhood of her own baby pictures. Wyatt lives with his father, Eric Buck. Father and son often visit Donna and John Bordeau. Donna Bordeau considers Eric a member of the family.

She wanted to do something specifically to memorialize her daughter, who graduated from Taconic High School in 2005 and attended the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, on scholarship obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and marine science. While there, she went to Tobago with a professor and took part in a study about efficient ways of growing conch. She also participated in a program to rehabilitate sea turtles and seals.

“I had to have a reason to be here,” Bordeau said.

The $1,000 scholarship at first went to a senior at Taconic High School pursuing the sciences. It was largely funded through a golf tournament, held in September to coincide with Liann’s birthday, which is Sept. 30.

Now a nonprofit, the Liann Bordeau-Buck Memorial Foundation has expanded since its inception and will award scholarships to graduating seniors from 10 high schools across Berkshire County, largely as a result of the recent participation of Berkshire Money Management …