Help OC Walk to Remember Support Families

2013 Walk News, Forever Footprints Events, Forever Footprints News, Fundraising, OC Walk to Remember, Parent Stories, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness, Support Resources

OC Walk to Remember relies on donations to help the thousands of Orange County families who have lost a baby or will lose a baby. We need your support to reach our 2013 fundraising goal.

START A FUNDRAISING PAGE IN MEMORY OF A BABY AND/OR DONATE NOW 

Our campaign ends tomorrow, October 15, which is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. Thank you to those of you who are working so hard to raise funds in  memory of a baby or babies. The funds raised go directly to support families who have lost a baby to miscarriage, stillbirth, SIDS, pregnancy loss and infant death. OC Walk to Remember supports 28 Orange County hospitals, Orange County support groups, and national pregnancy and infant loss organizations. To learn more about what OC Walk to Remember does in the community, watch this video.

Donations are used to:

• Provide medical professionals with bereavement training, so they can help families through their loss. So far in  2013, OC Walk to Remember has educated 79 doctors, 130 nurses, and 270  medical office staff.
• Purchase books for local hospitals, so as mothers recover from delivery or surgery they have a way to read about other women like them that have survived the heartache of loss.
• Print informational brochures in English and Spanish, so families that have experienced the loss of a baby know where to turn for support once they leave the hospital.
• Purchase memory boxes, so families can have something to hold in their empty arms. The only keepsake we will have of our baby is the box we receive in the hospital.
• Provide cameras, photo printers, printer ink, photo paper and other supplies to local hospitals so parents will forever have photos of their baby or babies.
• Provide iPods and docking stations so medical staff can provide music therapy to families going through a loss.
• Provide Orange County support groups that help families grieving the loss of a baby with funds to: hold reunions, distribute books, give small gifts to parents who have lost a baby, and pay rent and other operating expenses.
• Run the OC Walk to Remember Balancing Life & Loss: Parenting After Loss Group for families parenting a living child while grieving the loss of a baby.
• Provide families who have lost a baby with small notebooks, which become keepsakes where they can write about their baby.
• Run the OC Walk to Remember phone, email, and website, so parents seeking support always have a place to go. Requests for support are answered by a social worker.

The funds will also be used to support a brand new program we started this year in conjunction with UC Irvine Medical Center: The Perinatal Palliative Care Program. This program will provide care for families who are given a poor prenatal diagnosis, meaning the baby they are carrying will die at birth or shortly after birth. The program will provide counseling, spiritual support, pain management, coordination of care from all medical professionals involved in the pregnancy, and more. Families who receive the heart-breaking news about their unborn child with life-threatening or life-limiting conditions are faced with difficult choices and have many questions as well as emotional, social and spiritual needs. The program will guide the family through this traumatic experience of learning their baby is going to die. It is our hope to partner with many more hospitals to expand this program.

START A FUNDRAISING PAGE IN MEMORY OF A BABY AND/OR DONATE NOW

Your donation will change the life of families experiencing the loss of a baby.

We thank you so much for your support.

Kristyn von Rotz, Cofounder/Board of Directors
Elizabeth Pagliarini, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors
Catherine Steen, Board of Directors
Kari Poucher, Board of Directors
Kristy Cornell, Board of Directors
Ryan Farnsworth, Board of Directors
Kristin Cyprien, Executive Director