Joshua  Cooper was  3 when his father was murdered. The boy  kept that secret  to himself,  never telling his friends, until just recently. Now, 15 years later,  Cooper  said he can finally tell his story and not be afraid of what others might say or think — thanks to Kevin Doyle.

Kevin Doyle, 35, who lost his mother to murder when he was 17 years old, was just voted a TribLocal Hero by readers. The Sheilah A. Doyle Foundation, which Doyle established in 2009, will receive  $500 from TribLocal.

Cooper, a  freshman at Clarke University in Loves Park, Ill., said Doyle has inspired him to get his PhD in psychology and help others like him who have endured the same tragedy and to avoid drugs. His father, he said, was “murdered over drugs.”

The foundation works to help young people like Cooper by giving out college scholarships and paying for them to attend Comfort Zone Camp, designed for children of homicide victims. Cooper will attend a weekend  camp on Sept. 30  in Frankfort,  the first to be sponsored by the foundation. Doyle said he wishes that kind of camp existed when he was Cooper’s age.

Doyle recalls how he woke up on July 4, 1993, and began getting ready for church in Palos Park, when he learned that his mother had been killed the night before.

Doyle and his sisters, Kristin Doyle, 26, and Kelly Paroubek, 36, not only had to deal with the death, but also the media and the trials that dragged out.

“Our whole family had to take lie detector tests. They asked me: Did you murder your mom? I was afraid of going to school, of what the kids might say,” Doyle recalled.

The Doyle children lived in fear for seven weeks that the person who killed their mother would come after them.   At the end of August 1993, three men were arrested in what was called an armed robbery gone bad – two of them are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, Doyle said.

Doyle, co-owner of 3points, LLC,  an outsourced IT services company in Countryside,  said he was inspired by his mentor, Greg Cox, to start the foundation. Cox is the president  and chief operating officer of Dale Carnegie, Chicago.

“I started to tell him the story of my mom, how she was going back to school to save money to help us go to college, how I made it even after all I went through and how I might be a role model for kids who experienced this kind of tragedy,” Doyle recalled.

Doyle began by raising money to offer scholarships for those students. Soon he learned about the Comfort Zone Camp in Virginia.

“I watched a video about the camp and I cried,” he said.  “What the camp provides is an environment that’s safe for children to talk about what happened.”

Doyle and his two sisters, who now all live in the south suburbs, drove to Virginia to observe the camp.

“It was the first time my two sisters and I  went on vacation since my mom died,” he said.

Kristin  Doyle participated in a healing circle that helped kids open up and talk about the tragedy and watched as one by one children began to tell their stories.  Paroubek said she was glad to learn about this resource that gives kids something positive, instead of all negative.

“We all felt so connected . We really felt that what we’re  doing is the right thing to do,” Kevin Doyle said.

In less than a year the foundation has raised $90,000 to send  approximately 30 children and 45 volunteers to the camp. Fund-raisers have included an event on Feb. 26 in Tinley Park. Individuals and corporate donors also contributed.

Cooper, who learned about the foundation online,  raised $250 last year at his high school to give to the foundation. He and his mother,  Kristie Bader, attended the February event to meet Kevin Doyle and his sisters.

“We just sat and talked and talked about everything that’s happened. He (Kevin Doyle) showed me that everything is OK,” Cooper said. He told Doyle how his father’s murder was related to drugs and he was afraid to tell anyone fearing they would be thought of as a family dealing with drugs.

“We don’t do drugs,” Cooper said. “What I want to do is to help kids stay away from drugs.”

For his part, Doyle said he realized he has never full grieved for his mother.

“I can honestly tell you I didn’t deal with it. The foundation has been a great healing process for me and my family,” he said.

The foundation’s long-term plan is to help 250 youngsters go to camp each year.  Doyle hopes to run two camps in Chicago, two in southern California and two in New Jersey, just outside New York City.

For more information about the foundation, go to www.sadfund.org. Fore more information about the camp, go to www.comfortzonecamp.org.