SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – A woman’s unexpected death one week ago shocked and saddened her family but now they’re turning their unimaginable grief into a silver lining for Utahns in need.

Heather Farr passed away on August 18th at her Salt Lake City home. She was just 42.

“Just the best friend,” her older sister Robin Lally told ABC4 News Wednesday. “She’s the person you could tell anything and you knew she would be there to support you so I’ll miss that the most…Heather was just absolutely wonderfully unique. She was beautiful. She was incredibly intelligent. She was kind but what was most striking about Heather is that she had a really tender heart.”

Robin and Heather were less than two years apart and really bonded through some tough times growing up.

“When Heather and I were teenagers there were times when our family did not have food. There were days when we were hungry,” Lally said. “We would just try to make excuses about why we weren’t hungry or you know, we forgot our lunch, things like that, but the truth was hard. We didn’t have the ability to buy food.
Eventually, a local food pantry stepped in to help the family.

“I remember how amazing it felt when we finally did receive food and we knew that there was more where that came from,” Lally said. “Just the relief and the joy that we felt in having that support and that kindness. It’s really a significant part of our life that we both reflected upon often.”

Amid their shock and sorrow, Heather’s family decided to do something in her honor: make a $100,000 donation to the Utah Food Bank so that strangers they’ve never met and never will meet can have the same feeling Heather and Robin did when those boxes arrived.

“We know that Heather would just be elated. She’d be excited,” Lally said. “I think she would just say ‘It’s wonderful’…I think she would say to the people of Utah like ‘Thank you for being my friend and I appreciate you’ and ‘I’m just glad that my family had the ability to help out.'”

In addition to Robin, Heather is survived by her parents, two older brothers, and a younger sister plus four nephews and a niece.

To learn more about the Utah Food Bank, go to: https://www.utahfoodbank.org/