JAKE CHARLES COLBERT
November 22, 1987 ~ February 28, 2020
Jake Colbert, of Manchester, NH, born in Boston, MA, died tragically in a car accident early on Friday, February 28th. He was only 32 years old. He is survived by his Mother & Step-Father, Jennifer & Keith DeSutter, of Abington, MA; and his Father & Step-Mother, Charles Colbert & Toby Michelle Alley, of Bar Harbor, ME. He is also survived by cousins, and friends, and uncles (Adam Brown, Tim DeSutter, and Mark Colbert), and best buddies, and aunts (Debi Colbert and Gail Conboy), and more friends, and by several communities of humans that have had their lives made so much better for having had what is far too short lived an opportunity to know and love Jake.
Jake leaves family and friends in Downeast Maine, where he was much loved and a big part of an amazing, weird and wonderful community. The Colbert, Henries, and Klein families, and the Harvest Gathering folks will miss him fiercely.
Jake was a survivor of the Boston foster care process. Thanks to an excellent program with The Home for Little Wanderers he joined Jennifer & Charles in their Jamaica Plain home known as The Castle in 1999. Adoption quickly followed. As his parents both worked at the Boston Center for the Arts, Jake was brought into the world of theater and production. Jake shone...he was Jake-Star to his parents. At the BCA he was welcomed by a beautiful band of artists, administrators, & performers, and was able to participate in the BCA Teen Program (no longer funded) where he began to learn his love of technologies by running sound for their plays. He was also involved with Until Tomorrow, a Summer arts camp, where he got to clown around with other teens with, or with out, special needs, launching him on his path to being extraordinarily compassionate and extremely silly.
Jake was a graduate of Clearway School in Newton, MA (‘06). There he learned to advocate for his learning disabilities and, importantly, began a life long commitment to advocating for himself, his friends, and family. He was always making time to help a friend, move a friend, visit a friend... He was dedicated to being a great friend to every friend he ever made.
He went on to graduate from Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology (‘09) and then on to get his Bachelor of Science, Information Technology, from UMass Boston (‘16). He had been working for Integra Biosciences US, in Hudson, NH. He was extremely proud of what he had accomplished in his job, and he really valued his colleagues and supervisors at Integra.
He was also a passionate and proud lefty. A big, beautiful, Bernie-Supporting, Lefty. He was knowledgeable, extremely well-read, and woe to anyone on any page on Facebook that did not have their facts straight. His writing was sharp, and often extremely funny. Except when he hit you with one of his really bad jokes. Really, really bad jokes. His posts on Facebook were often likely to make a person fall out laughing.
His humor, his love, his intelligence, his smile, his laugh…
Everything that was Jake is going to be terribly missed.
He was an amazing son.
In lieu of flowers, his family and friends request donations to be given in Jake’s name to:
The Home for Little Wanderers http://www.thehome.org/ Click the big green DONATE button near the top, then click to complete the tribute form. The Home has the address for acknowledgements on record, so no need to enter anything but the name Jake Colbert to process a memorial gift. Or, other suggested donations are The Clearway School of Newton, Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, or Boston Center for the Arts. All of these organizations were very important to Jake.
Relatives and friends are kindly invited to visit with Jake’s family in the William J. Gormley Funeral Home, 2055 Centre Street, WEST ROXBURY on Saturday, March 7th, 2020 from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. For directions and guestbook, please visit: gormleyfuneral.com