Saturday, April 18, 2026
12:00pm - 2:00pm
Moderated by author and actress Randye Kaye, the group will include Cindy Eastman, Donna Finneran, Dan Lowry, Matt Monagan, and Thai Vo.
Tragedy to Triumph is part of The CommUNITY Spotlight Series grant-funded by the Connecticut Community Foundation.
Talk
Cindy Eastman is the award-winning author of Flip-Flops After 50: And Other Thoughts On Aging I Remembered To Write Down and True Confessions of an Ambivalent Caregiver. She recently edited the anthology, Grief Like Yours, which was published in June 2025.
Additionally, she is a contributor to several anthologies and writes a weekly essay called Silver Linings on Substack. She also collaborated with her daughter, Annie Musso, on a series of essays called “Can We Talk About Cancer?” which detailed Annie’s battle with cancer before she died in April 2024.
Cindy has a master’s degree in education and has taught writing to students between the ages of 5 and 85 years old. She currently teaches English at her local community college and facilitates several writing groups. She lives in Watertown, CT with her husband Angelo and can often be found in the company of her grandchildren.
Donna Finneran was devastated by the loss of her twin brother Brian. She and her husband Walter, along with their children Billy, Patrick and Lizz, co-founded the Brian O'Connell Homeless Foundation (BOHP) in her brother's honor.
Whether handing out "Brian Bags" to the homeless, collecting and packaging items with a small army of volunteers, or promoting her Foundation's projects, Donna aims to give people hope, and encourage others to have compassion for one another.
The care packages are her way to honor and remember her brother who suffered from PTSD after witnessing the 9/11 tragedy. His experience led him to leave NYC and move in with Donna. Eventually Brian left because he didn't want to be a burden on his family any longer. Donna still met Brian weekly to give him supplies, until one day he didn't show up. A year later, his body was found. The wait in the meantime was unbearable for Donna and she, too, started having thoughts of suicide. However, a chance phone call from Father James Sullivan and an invitation to join his parish interceded the attempt. Her conversations with Father Jim and other parishioners helped launch the idea of "Brian Bags" and the BOHP.
Donna believes that people want to help the homeless, but they just don’t know how. The Brian O’Connell Homeless Project makes it possible for people to help and treat everyone with dignity while they are offering a hand up.
Randye Kaye makes her living as an actor, including in radio (STAR 99.9, NPR/WSHU), voiceovers/audiobook narration, podcasts, storytelling and public speaking. She has had her share of “Tragedy to Triumph” and writes about this in two books: Ben Behind His Voices: One Family’s Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope (nominated for a Listen Up! Award for its audiobook) and Happier Made Simple: Choose Your Words. Change Your Life (Front Porch Press, 2022).
Randye’s first love was theatre, and she’s a proud member of CT Theater Women Network. Some favorite roles: Bye Bye Birdie (Mae), Fireflies (Eleanor), Broadway Bound (Kate), Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Marjorie), Nunsense 1 and 3 (Sister Robert Anne, directed by Danny Goggin), Into the Woods (Baker’s Wife).
SAG/AFTRA/AEA. randyekaye.com
Dan Lowry is a 63-year-old Social Studies teacher at Middletown High School. A former college athlete, Dan's prior heathcare journey had included knee replacement and significant weightloss, but nothing could prepare him for what was to come.
In November 2019, Dan was hospitalized with a severe case of Legionnaires' Disease, significantly impacting the next six years of his life. The Lowrys were unaware that the world would soon undergo significant changes due to the COVID-19 outbreak, which would also considerably impact their lives. Since May 2020, Dan contracted COVID seven times. While the infections were not life-threatening, their long-term effects were severe. Dan became a COVID-19 long-hauler and could not care for himself or work. It seemed he would forever be homebound. His experience is one of perseverance and hope as he navigated doctors, support groups, research, alternative therapies, and continued recovery.
Matt Monagan is a full-time writer for MLB.com and freelances for Travel & Leisure, Architectural Digest, and CondeĢ Nast Traveler.
In October 2018, his wife Dhanushka was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, a rare nearly incurable brain cancer a few weeks after she turned 27. After an incredibly brave fight, she passed away in June 2020. Matt was 33 when she died and was unsure of what to do with his life from there. He went home from NYC to live with his parents in CT for the summer. He endured panic attacks, had trouble eating, and found it difficult to wrap his head around what he'd been through. Family and friends, therapy, the arrival of his brother's new baby brought light into the darkest of dark times.
Matt returned to NYC in October 2020. With most of his friends moved away or married, he threw himself into his local slow-pitch softball league. Playing Saturdays and Sundays, he made more friends than he could ever have imagined. This new adopted community knew what Matt had gone through, accepted him and gave him a new life.
Matt's new philosophy is to embrace life in the present, knowing that best laid plans can't always be counted upon.
Thai Vo was born in 1974 in a small town in central Vietnam, the oldest of 5 siblings. At age 8, he, along with his immediate, extended family and close friends, escaped the war-torn country on a small fishing boat fitted with the engine of a school bus. In search of a better life, the family snuck past soldiers in the middle of the night and escaped down the river. Thai and his family spent 10 harrowing days on the open sea facing sickness, starvation and multiple pirate attacks, before they were eventually rescued off the coast of Thailand. After spending months in a refugee camp, Thai and his family slowly made their way to America with the promise of freedom guiding their path.
Overcoming many early hardships, Thai went on to graduate from Watertown High School, and then Wentworth Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in architecture. He is now a partner in an architecture and construction firm in Tampa, Florida.
Thai survived a heart attack in 2017, and was released after a week in the ICU, more determined than ever to lead a healthy and long life. Thai’s story is one of ongoing perseverance, hope for a better future, hard work, and success.
