Our hearts are with you

Our hearts are with you

Dear Center Community –

Our hearts continue to be with you all. We are all in this together!

We know that we may all find ourselves anxious and frightened confronted with unanticipated challenges. Our families are stretched now more than ever, and the isolation that we are all experiencing can be even more challenging for our grieving children, teens, and families.

We continue to reach out to all our families. We have spoken with all our group peer support facilitators. We are tremendously grateful for our Board’s support. We will stay true to our mission – providing a safe space, loving peer support, outreach, and education to grieving children, teens, families and the community.

I wish to share with you the quote from a young woman who attended the Center after the unexpected loss of her dad. It resonates especially today and always.

“It is through the chaos that one gets to the places or people that transform them into an even better person than before. The Center allowed me to go from not fully understanding the world around me to someone who loves experiencing it. I cannot thank the Center enough for allowing me to become the person I am proud to be. It is experiences like these that help change a person. It is the interaction with people or places in our community after a traumatic event that makes us truly see the beauty in the chaos of reality, and understand the importance of the community around us. I have gone from a child who wanted to control the chaos to an adult who’s learned to cope with it.”

Our team and staff have begun training on how to run the most meaningful and effective grief support groups online. We cannot say enough how grateful we are to our volunteers willing to continue to support our children and help them through their grief with a new way to reach even more families during this time.

Together our team has been working behind the scenes to move the Center’s mission forward. A few updates to share with you:

• Last Thursday night we joined together on Zoom to meet with our Team Leaders.
• Beginning Monday and every night this week will be conducting Zoom meetings for all our facilitators on their respective night of service as we gear up for virtual meetings with families.
• We have a special Zoom meeting planned for parents helping navigate stress.
• Next week we hope to begin Zoom peer support for our parents and adult groups.

The Center for Grieving Children is so grateful for our loving community – families, facilitators, board, staff, and friends.   

If for any reason you want to reach out, you should. We are here – by phone, email or Zoom. 

We are so honored by your support this year and even more so now honored to fulfill our mission.

We will get through this together and stronger. As always, we are here for you. 

Warmly,

Anne Heros, Executive Director
Julie Grosvenor, MD, Board President
Mary Larkin, Vice President
Kevin Chase, Treasurer
Robert Baldacci, Secretary
William Kany, At Large, Executive Committee
Shikha Vasaiwala, At Large, Executive Committee