Camille Strickland-Murphy’s Memory lives on this Christmas and forever

Camille Strickland-Murphy’s Memory lives on this Christmas and forever



Mollie Jameson, Camille (centre) and Hayley Drohan participate in Secret Santa



Camille Strickland Murphy left us too early on July 28, 2015 at the age of 22, but rest assured, her beautiful soul lives on this Christmas.

Every year for 11 years Camille and her friends would participate in a Secret Santa where each person would draw a name out of a hat and then purchase a gift for the person whose name they drew. The anonymous exchange which took place a few days before Christmas was always filled with laughter and good memories of sports and school, boyfriends and family. Even after many of the girls moved away they still found a way to pick names (using an app) and hold the event when everyone was home.



The Secret Santa friends



“Camille was intelligent, highly articulate, irreverent, ridiculously funny and a good friend to many,” reads her obituary. “She highly valued and built strong and enduring friendships. Even when her mental illness and related problems overcame her …, her good friends and their families continued to try to support her in any way that they could…”

Although Camille cannot be with her friends this Christmas, they continue to support her. This year instead of choosing names, 22 girls took the money they would have spent on Secret Santa gifts, plus a bit more, and pooled it together to buy a treadmill in Camille’s memory for the Newfoundland & Labrador Correctional Center for Women (NLCCW) in Clarenville where Camille had spent time. During her incarceration Camille, who lived to sail and was a super runner and downhill skier, often lamented the lack of recreational equipment in prison. 



“There was not a lot of opportunity to work out (for Camille),” says Maria Clift, who will present craft supplies, soccer balls, basketballs, volleyballs and footballs on December 24 to Shelley Michelin, Assistant Superintendent of the Clarenville Correctional Centre where the treadmill has already been delivered. “We felt recreational equipment would benefit the prison. The inmates would be in better shape. At some point it has to be about rehabilitation and not just about punishment. The way (Camille) would talk about (athletics) was like no one else, especially sailing,” says Clift adding that once word spread about the idea, many others contributed to the cause raising enough money to donate an exercise bike as well as a treadmill.

Camille doing what she loved best

So to Cecily, Noel, Keir, Lois and the rest of the Strickland and Murphy families, Merry Christmas. Please know that Camille has not been forgotten.