Bow senior unveils brick patio after raising $10,000 for Ouellette family scholarship

For his senior project at Bow High School, Falcons’ football player Cole McLaughlin wanted to help remember his former teammate Nick Ouellette, who died in a car accident in September 2021, by contributing to the Ouellette scholarship fund through a fundraiser for bricks to make a patio.

On Wednesday night at the football field, McLaughlin was finally able to unveil the 10x10 brick patio just a couple weeks after the Bow High class of 2023 honored Nick with an empty chair at their graduation.

The patio fundraiser raised $10,000 for the scholarship fund.

“(The bricks are) left there forever,” McLaughlin told the Monitor in April. “I figured that would be a great fundraiser to do for my friend who passed.”

The Ouellette family created the scholarship fund to carry forward the legacy of Nick and his younger brother, Gavin, who also died in the crash.

“My biggest fear has been, since the accident, that my boys will be forgotten,” said Jenn Ouellette, Nick and Gavin’s mother in April. “Through the accident, we realized what an amazing community we have and how much support we had. We want the boys to be always remembered. We want their names to be said. We also want to show the community how grateful we are because we could never tell every individual thank you, and we’re so thankful. So we thought, this is giving back to the kids in Bow.”

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