Beacon residents are celebrating a local known as 'The Pink Unicorn,' who would spread cheer around the city every weekend, until his death almost one year ago.

Jill Quaglino was organizing decorations and donations at her Beacon home Friday afternoon for that evening's event to honor her late husband, David Shelley, also known as The Pink Unicorn.

A neighbor gifted Shelley the large, loud, pink unicorn costume in 2021 for shoveling her sidewalk.

Shelley ran with it, literally.

Every weekend, he would don the costume and work the streets of Beacon spreading cheer, giving out hugs and doing random good deeds.

Quaglino said friends and family in Beacon have helped her cope since Shelley died of brain cancer on Dec. 15, 2024.

"The community around me has been phenomenal in their support," she said, "and I wouldn't be able to be here with you having this conversation without that support."

In an interview shortly after Shelley's death last December, Quaglino pledged to do something to keep his memory alive and still spread kindness, though she was not exactly sure what the project would be at the time.

She knows what it is now.

Quaglino, along with several contributing local businesses, launched the Pink Unicorn Funds Friday evening.

The nonprofit will award grants to Beacon residents in financial hardship.

Friday's event was the announcement of the project.

The Pink Unicorn Fund will officially achieve non-profit status next year, Quaglino said.

"There will be a lot of things for people to see who Dave was," she said, "and what we hope to accomplish."

Business owner Donna Wirthmann and others have been helping shape the Pink Unicorn Fund's mission and helping set up the nonprofit.

Wirthmann was glad to help considering the effect Shelley had on her granddaughters.

Crayon drawings by the two girls still hang in Wirthmann's store behind the register.

"We talked about what good it would be to bring that to Beacon," Wirthmann said of the Pink Unicorn Fund. "The joy that he brought to Beacon will live forever."