A new foundation has been created to not only honor the memory of a woman who’s deeply loved and missed but also support and uplift females’ careers. 

As family, friends, neighbors, and community remember and honor Wendy Jo Shaffer, a foundation has been created in her honor to uplift women in their professional careers. 

Shaffer — who grew up in Mahtomedi and later lived in North Carolina with her husband and two kids — was on the American Airlines flight that collided with a military helicopter in late January over Washington, D.C.’s Potomac River. There were no survivors. 

Now, the “Wendy Jo Shaffer Foundation” hopes to support women and girls getting into engineering, math, and science fields. 

“Her personality, how she spoke to people, her energy, her attitude, we should all strive to be like Wendy,” Elle Kehoe, one of her closest friends, said. 

“It’s been really tough to try and learn and understand why such a wonderful person was taken from us so young,” Kehoe added. 

It’s clear how wonderful and special Shaffer meant to those close to her — an online fundraiser, in just a matter of weeks, raised nearly $400,000.

Kehoe says part of the mission of the foundation is helping honor Shaffer’s kindness and hard work — who had a successful engineering career — but also treat others as she did, with kindness and support, Kehoe says, always with a smile. 

“We’re hoping, with this foundation, that we’ll be able to bring this confidence to other females and empower them to pursue their dreams,” Kehoe said. 

Shaffer’s favorite boutique to shop, Primp, is donating 10% of its online sales to the foundation during February — also in-store on Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., it’ll do the same for in-store purchases. 

Funeral, visitation, and celebration of life plans have been set for this week, as well.