(CNN) – Matthew Perry often talked about how much he wanted to help people. A year after his deaththose who loved him heal with the same feeling at the forefront of their minds.

“It’s been hard for everybody,” Perry’s sister Caitlin Morrison told CNN in a recent interview.

Morrison, who is the daughter of Suzanne Morrison and Perry’s stepfather, “Dateline” correspondent Keith Morrison, is executive director of the Matthew Perry Foundation of Canada, which launched just last week.

It has been the actor’s longtime dream to help others struggling with addiction. Now, those who knew him best are working to make his wish come true in his absence.

The Matthew Perry Foundation of Canada focuses on providing housing, mental health, career and financial support to people in their first year of recovery as they navigate what Morrison described as “a very lean period in early sobriety,” a time when she said she also experienced Perry.

“I remember him saying a few times that first year was a beast. There were so many roadblocks and so many difficulties,” she recalled. “We thought it would be just the thing that would align with something that he wanted to do, to say, ‘Well, let’s help people. Let’s help people get over that hurdle that was such a big and difficult hurdle to get over when he first fought.”

Perry’s mother, his lifelong friend Brian Murray and Cara Vaccarino, the president and CEO of Canadian mental health research company The Royal, are also involved with the organization.

Morrison said being pregnant herself helped with her own healing.

“If the work I’m doing now saves a family from feeling this way, it’s a relief for my own pain,” she added.

“He’s still so important in our lives”

Perry is best known for playing the lovable and lovable Chandler Bing in “Friends”, alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc from 1994 to 2004. He also played Oscar Madison in the 2015 reboot of ‘The Odd Couple’ and appeared in films such as ‘ 17 Again”, “The Whole”. Nine Yards” and “Fools Rush In” among others.

His acting style gravitated toward the frenetically funny, but he could turn to the vulnerable human with charming ease. It was always uniquely his.

Behind the scenes, he struggled with addiction, which he chronicled in 2022 MEMORANDUM “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Awful Thing.” By speaking publicly about it, Perry has sought to bring comfort and healing to those facing the same adversities he did.

Perry died at his home in Pacific Palisades in October 2023. He was 54 years old.

His death, according to the Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s Office autopsy report, was the result of “acute effects of ketamine” and subsequent drowning.

Five people have been since then CHARGED about his death.

Three of the five people charged have taken plea deals, while the other two are set to go process this spring.

In November 2023, days after Perry’s death, Lisa Kasteler and Doug Chapin—his former longtime publicist and manager, respectively—established Matthew Perry Foundation in California. Chapin jokingly calls it “the last order we received from our customer.”

“And we immediately put it into effect,” he said.

The organization is sponsored and maintained by the National Philanthropic Trust, which helps the Matthew Perry Foundation provide resources and funding for West Coast organizations working to fight addiction in their communities.

Chapin and Kasteler said stigma has played a role in the challenges Perry has faced throughout her own recovery journey, and that combating that stigma is one of their main goals.

“I know if Matthew wasn’t ashamed, he’d be here,” Kasteler said. “If we do nothing but get rid of the stigma around it, because it just leads to so many other things, then I’ll be happy.”

Kasteler — who fondly described Perry as her “favorite” client — planned to retire after a decades-long career running powerful PR agency Wolf Kasteler before Perry died. He is now the executive director of the foundation. Chapin is chairman of the foundation’s board of directors.

Acknowledging how rare it is in the entertainment industry to have had such a long and deep relationship with a client, both Kasteler and Chapin said their continued work at the foundation over this past year has helped keep Perry close to their hearts.

“The pension didn’t quite work out,” Kasteler said. “But that’s okay because I think this is the most important work I’ve done.”

Chapin added: “He still feels alive in a lot of ways. He is still so central to our lives and we are basically still working for him. It keeps him alive. So that’s one thing that helps in these tough days.”

“Cherish every moment”

Many of Perry’s former colleagues have been open about their pain.

His “Friends” castmates issued a statement in the days after his death, but individually, they continued to talk about the pain of his absence.

One tribute last year, Aniston wrote, “Being able to really sit in that pain allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone so deeply. And I loved him deeply.”

His “Friends” castmates weren’t alone. Throughout her career, Perry has been part of several ensemble casts.

In a recent interview with CNN, Yvette Nicole Brown, who co-starred with Perry and Thomas Lennon in “The Odd Couple,” recalled Perry as “an open book,” whose loss taught her ” to cherish every moment”.

“You don’t know when is the last time you’re going to talk to someone,” she said. “That’s the biggest lesson from him.”

As much as Brown admired Perry as a professional, she admitted she was also a fan. During her first few days on set, she worked to temper her excitement, looking Perry in the eye only when she had to. Perry got it.

“He said, ‘Yvette, come on. it’s me We’re in this together,'” she recalled. “He was very aware — and not from a vain or arrogant space — of his impact (and) he wanted people to be comfortable. More than anything, Matthew wanted people to be comfortable.”

Perry always cared about people and wanted them to do well, Brown said — whether they were co-stars or a stranger walking his own path through addiction.

“That’s why I keep saying yes to talking about him, because I don’t want anything else that comes out in the salacious space to overshadow his heart and his kindness, his friendship,” she said. “The circumstances in which he left here and the people who had a helping hand should not be the final word on who he was as a human being. It was much more than that, much more than that.”

The-CNN-Wire
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