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.
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.
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
Yesterday, so many memories were made at the 9th Annual 5K Walk. We remembered our babies, walked the steps our babies never got to take, and celebrated the huge impact they continue to make on our lives. If you took pictures, we would love to see them! Have a favorite memory from October 5th? We want to hear about that too! Please email kfuruta@ocwalktoremember.org and we will make a special post here on our blog!
What does the OC Walk to Remember do throughout the year? With the 9th Annual 2013 OC Walk To Remember Memorial Service, 5K Walk and Celebration of Angels event just around the corner, we want to fill you in on all the wonderful things that have gone on this past year. First off, thank you to each and every one of you because this organization is powered by volunteers and families. You are part of the OC Walk to Remember family. There is something really special that the community gives each other when they work together, talk to each other, and collaborate.
Meet Angie Bailey, a volunteer who has taken on a new role for OC Walk to Remember as Director of Community Education. In 2010, Angie silently gave birth to her first child, Aiden Kenneth Bailey. He was full term and the pregnancy was healthy and uneventful. Aiden was perfect in every way, no reason was ever found for why he was born still. She and her husband continue to mourn their loss every day. Since losing Aiden, working with families grieving the loss of a child has become her passion. Before moving into her current position, she began working with the OC Walk to Remember in 2011 organizing volunteers for their annual 5k walk.
Tell us about being Director of Community Education. Why is this role so important?
I took on my volunteer position of Director of Community Education in November 2012. Kristyn approached me with this opportunity and together we came up with my duties. Which mainly consists of the planning and implementation of educating the medical community. I visit OB/GYN offices and meet with doctor’s and their staff to teach them about resources that are available to their patients and ways to better care for women during and after the loss of a baby. I also visit nursing schools and attend teaching seminars for nurses and other hospital staff. Since the organization first began, OC Walk to Remember has had strong relationships with local labor & delivery and neonatal intensive care units. This is the first time we have made such connections within medical offices. It’s so important that we continue to educate outside of just the hospitals because doctor’s offices see the most broad types of losses, not every woman who endures the loss of a baby is treated in a hospital.
We know how important it is to be sure your baby’s name is included on our baby name banner, for your baby’s name to be read at the Memorial Service, and for your baby’s photo and/or quote and name to be included in our video. We have created these links so you can check to be sure your submission has been received.
Reading of baby names at the Memorial Service: If you have registered for the event and want to verify your child’s name has be received, please click here. (Please note the list is updated as of 9/19.) If you would like a baby’s name read during the memorial service, you can register online and submit your baby’s name. Once online registration is closed, you can still submit a baby’s name onsite at the Baby Names tent on October 5 at the event.
Baby Names Banner: Names submitted through September 19 will be included on the baby names banner, which will be displayed at the event. Please click here to view the list of baby names that will appear on the baby names banner. (Please note the deadline has passed to add baby names to the banner, and unfortunately we can not accept new submissions.)
Video Submissions: If you submitted a photo, name and/or quote for the memorial video that is played during the Celebration of Angels and on the OC Walk to Remember website, please click here to verify your child’s name appears. (Please note the date for submissions for the video have already passed and unfortunately we can not accept any new submissions.)
The OC Walk to Remember Compassion Award is given to an individual or individuals in recognition of their contribution to the pregnancy and infant loss community. Each year, Support group leaders, doctors, nurses, parents or other individuals who have made an impact in the lives of parents and families who have suffered a pregnancy or infant loss are nominated for this award.
If you would like to nominate someone for the 2013 OC Walk to Remember Compassion Award, please CLICK HERE
Please note the deadline for submissions is September 23.
Past recipients of the OC Walk to Remember Compassion Award
2010 Award Recipients
Kelly Young
Nurse
UC Irvine Medical Center Perinatal Task Force
Suzanne Engelder
Program Coordinator
St. Joseph Perinatal Comfort Care Program
2011 Award Recipient
Megan Heddlesten
Facilitator
Healing Hearts Share Support Group
2012 Award Recipients
Laura Navarro Pickens
LCSW and Support Group Leader
Kirsten Pert
Pregnancy and Infant Loss Educator and Advocate
We would like to incorporate memories of your baby or babies in a video that will be shown online and at the event. If you would like to participate, please send a photograph of your baby or of something representing your baby (such as their footprints, a meaningful quote, their name, etc.) Please resend even if you participated and sent something last year.
The video/photos will be shared publicly, so please be aware of that. Pictures must be high resolution. Please submit no more than 10 words. You may submit a photo and wording. Due to space limitations we can only accept one memorial per family/child. Send submissions to: video@ocwalktoremember.org
* Please know our goal is to use all submissions and will do our best to include all that are sent.
Kirsten Pert