GREENVILLE, Maine — Bill Foley says his nephew, James Foley, was an adventurous man who would have found humor in the off-beat dinner organized to benefit the cause the slain journalist intended to devote himself to after returning to the U.S.
James Foley was beheaded in August by the Islamic State, an extremist group also referred to as ISIS and ISIL. The New Hampshire native was kidnapped by the group in November of 2012 and was held hostage for nearly two years.
On Sunday, the Stress Free Moose restaurant will host what it’s calling “Roadkill for a Cause,” during which two top-notch chefs will prepare a wild game dinner. On the menu? Bear, moose, elk and who knows what else.
“Jimmy would have loved it,” Bill Foley, owner of Moosehead Hills Cabins in Greenville, said. “He was always up for anything different or crazy like that.”
The dinner will help efforts to address one of the Foley family’s frustrations during Jim’s captivity.
“Our government has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, so [Foley’s parents] were on their own,” Bill Foley explained. “What Jimmy was going to do when he got out was form and run a resource center for families of American hostages, because there is no avenue for them to negotiate releases.”
All proceeds from the event will go to the James W. Foley Legacy Fund, a nonprofit that will work to foster a global dialog on government policies during hostage crises and will support American journalists who are reporting from conflict zones. The fund was created by Jim Foley’s parents, Diane and John Foley, after their son’s death.
Bill Foley said his nephew was committed to that cause even before his well-publicized kidnapping in Syria.
“[That] wasn’t the first time he was held,” Bill Foley explained. “The first time was in Libya. … We still had some diplomatic relations with Libya at that point, so they were able to negotiate his release.”
Bill Foley said when he returned to the U.S. after his release, relatives and co-workers tried to get him to accept a desk job at GlobalPost in Boston. He refused.
“He was always concerned about other people and people who couldn’t help themselves. That was his main emphasis over there — to make people aware of the atrocities that were going on. He felt very strongly that’s how he could help,” Bill Foley said.
About six months later, on Thanksgiving Day in 2012, he was captured again — this time in Syria.
“Everyone says the same thing in similar situations, but he was a special individual,” Bill Foley said.
Jim Foley’s father is Bill Foley’s oldest brother, and Bill Foley is the youngest of all of Jim’s uncles and aunts. Bill and Jim were born 12 years apart and were very close, Bill Foley said.
After Bill moved to Greenville 16 years ago, Jim came to visit and had a great time in the Moosehead Lake area.
“He loved it,” Bill Foley said. “He’s always been an outdoor kind of person, and he just loved coming up and experiencing the local flavor.”
On Sunday, another kind of “local flavor” will take center stage during the benefit dinner. Bill Foley said Stacey Duncan, owner of the Stress Free Moose, deserves most of the credit for organizing the off-beat benefit. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife donated some of the meat, as have local hunters.
Duncan said she was already helping plan a wild game dinner but hadn’t settled on a beneficiary. Then she heard the Foley family’s story.
“I thought, here’s this local family that just went through this terrible tragedy and they’ve set up this amazing fund to do incredible things,” Duncan said. “[Bill’s] nephew was a really neat guy. He was a giver. He put his life in danger regularly to give us real news. He should be honored for that.”
Guests at the dinner, which will run from 3-8 p.m. Sunday, won’t be munching on typical wild fare, either. Two local chefs, Curtis “Bear” Hillard of Greenville Inn and Gary Dethlefsen of Blair Hill Inn, have teamed up and are creating a variety of dishes.
“They are braising, smoking, marinating, grinding,” Duncan said. “They’re making kabobs and sausage and chilis and chop sueys.”
Duncan said she’s not allowed to sell wild game meat because of state laws. Those who attend are invited to donate as much as they like to the fund. And she said she doesn’t know what kind of turnout to expect.
“You don’t know,” she said. “Is it going to be 50 people or 350? There’s no way to know.”
There is one thing she does know: She’ll have a special guest on hand to help take care of her guests.
“Bill’s going to be our guest bartender,” she said.
