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As you read this newsletter, think about where these children, adolescents and adults would have gone if we didn’t have a program that supported their grief. As I collect pictures, I am reminded of the courage that each child and adolescent has shown each day and every week as they attend the only place for grieving children and adolescents. We are here to listen, guide and teach. As a result, families are strengthened and parents are feeling more confident about their parenting skills as they too work through their loss.

We have a great board of directors that care deeply about our mission and building a stronger community for all of our children. I am grateful to have the many volunteers share their time and passion in our program as well as deeply honored that the community has chosen The Solace Tree – Child and Adolescent Center for Grief and Loss to make a contribution.

For the children,

Emilio

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Many of you may be aware that The Solace Tree used donated space for the past three years. We are very grateful for the space provided by Anderson Elementary School, Renown Health and Bailey Charter School. Over the past few months something magic has happened. The University of Nevada, Reno has help donate a house in an undisclosed space on campus.

As an organization we began to put down roots in this community, roots that have grown strong. Our home gives children and adolescents a place to call their own, a home where the rooms are always

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The Solace Tree celebrated its fifth anniversary on Thursday. The nonprofit center provides free peer support groups for youths 2 to 18 and their parents who have experienced the death of someone they love.

Founded by Emilio Parga, the center has helped more than 2,000 children and adults work through their grief.

On Wednesday evening, teens, adults and children congregated in various rooms of the brick house in north Reno to share memories about their loved ones who had died.

Virginia Briggs of Sparks started attending peer support groups in September after three close relatives died within six months: her husband, her father and her mother-in-law.

“It’s my outlet for talking about loss when others are in similar situations,” she said.

Her three children, ages 11, 9 and 5, were having sleeping problems and showing a lot of anger after their father died, she said.

“We talk about their father every day,” Briggs said. “They get so excited about what they are going to share when they come (to the Solace Tree.)”

Her children have friendships with other youngsters at the center who’ve gone through similar losses. Their school friends can’t relate to her children’s situation, Briggs said.

Shauna Colestock of Sparks has two sons, ages 5 and 7, whose father died suddenly last year.

The Solace Tree has helped her to “have someone to talk to who understands,” she said.

“Everybody grieves in their own way and life does get better” are two of the concepts Colestock said she’s taken away from her sessions at the Solace Tree.

Colestock said her

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Originally posted in Washoe Family Magazine, April 2007 –

In times of grief and sadness, there’s no better way to find comfort than breathing in fresh air and soaking up sunlight. That’s why for two weekends each year, 34 children, 16 adolescents, 25 volunteer facilitators, two nurses, a cook and two camp leaders gather in the great outdoors for bereavement camp.

In 2002, the Solace Tree was created as this community’s first non-profit organization to assist families and children with bereavement. When loved ones die, children and adults are faced with a tremendous range of feelings, which come and go at different times. These new emotions and the challenges of grief are diffcult pieces to fit into daily life, which is why we felt it was important to create a sort of escape, in the form of bereavement camp — some place to get away, if only for a few days, to become rejuvenated, to deal with feelings and to soak up that sunshine.

Our first camp, in the summer of 2006, was so popular that we, unfortunately, had to turn away 32 children and adolescents, simply due to a lack of space. We decided that from then on, we would hold bereavement camp two weekends a year, once in summer and once in fall.

These two camps — Camp Solace, held at majestic Glenbrook at Lake Tahoe, and Camp HUG at Eagle Lake — are both designed to help kids, ages 7 to 17, to grieve in a safe environment, as they learn healthy

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