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Tim Bosma’s widow, Sharlene, starts charity to help families of homicide victims

With Tim's Tribute, Sharlene Bosma hopes people will hear her late husband's name and associate it with something greater than how he died.

Three months after the abduction and murder of her husband, Tim Bosma, Sharlene is choosing hope.

"There has to be something good," she said of life after Tim. "And since I can’t see it, I’ll make it."

The 34-year-old "emotionally exhausted" mother of one is the founder of Tim's Tribute, a charity that benefits families of homicide victims.

"For the first time in almost three months, I have hope — hope that there will be something good to come of what happened to Tim," she said in a statement.

She announced the fund yesterday, while Dellen Millard and Mark Smich, the men charged in her husband's death, appeared in court.

"It's a way to make something of it that's good," Sharlene told CBC News. "That's where I'm going to focus my attention."

"There are some things in life you have to do," she told QMI Agency. "I never thought this would be it, but this is on my list of things that I'm now going to be doing."

The nonprofit organization will help families with immediate crisis needs — like funeral costs and groceries — and with trial expenses that include lost wages, transportation and parking.

"These are things people shouldn’t have to think about," she told the Toronto Star. "I understand the feeling of thinking you have all the time in the world, and then you don’t."

According to the charity's official site , "For now, 'Tim's Tribute' will be focusing on providing assistance and support in the Hamilton-Wentworth area. It is our hope that we will eventually be able to expand beyond this region."

Sharlene was inspired to establish the charity after donations poured in to help care for her family.

"My faith in humanity was restored by the goodness of strangers," she said of the overwhelming support she received.

"I'm fully aware that very few people are recipients of such generosity, and I feel compelled to try to change that," she said. "I have learned that there is very little support for families in our situation."

Sharlene told CBC News that she hopes that when her toddler daughter looks up her dad's name online one day, her search results won't be all bad.

"It feels good and it feels right," she said. "Hopefully one day, when people hear 'Tim Bosma,' it's not just about what happened to him. It's what hopefully becomes a legacy going forward."