My ideas for The Logan Foundation... a way to offer support to those families suffering from an imaginable loss through miscarriage, stillbirth or infant loss. It's a group that many families are part of but very few speak of... our goal is to change that. No more suffering in silence...
In the beginning of April I submitted an application to PeaChic foundation. A company that offers grants to businesses that offer support to women or run by women. Here is what my application looked like:
Grants:
About our business:
On December 2nd, 2010 I gave birth to my son, Logan. He was born still at 28 weeks after a sonogram confirmed what my heart already knew, there was no heartbeat, he had died. Although I had a wonderful group of family and friends surrounding and supporting me, no one could relate to what I was going through. No one knew the hurt of losing a child, no one knew the fear that I might have done something to make his heart stop, all of these questions and all of these things I wanted to say, but didn't feel that they would be heard with understanding ears. My goal/vision is to give support to those women going through this loss, while it's happening. To be an understanding hand to hold. To be a knowing shoulder to cry on. It's amazing how alone you can feel in a room full of people you love. I want to offer a support system from the moment a mother/father/family finds out that their child is gone. I understand that there are support groups for grieving parents of this type of situation, however a support group is for after the fact, it takes quite a bit of courage to be able to walk in a room and listen/talk about this loss. I know that it would have helped me to have a person who had suffered this type of loss be available to me while I was experiencing the loss. We would like to eventually offer some financial support for the burial/cremation. No one goes into a pregnancy thinking about buring their child and all the focus is on getting the nursery ready. I’ll be honest that cost was a consideration in our initial thoughts of what to do with our Logan’s remains, my grandparents were thoughtful and caring enough to give us the money we needed to get Logan cremated. Although the cost is not an extreme cost, it is still an unexpected cost. It would be one less worry on the mind of the grieving family. I would also like to set up a network of local (and eventually national) funeral homes/crematoriums that would offer services at deeply discounted rates if not free that could be offered to the families. I would like to raise money by doing walk/runs, having fundraisers that would not only provide funding for The Logan Clear Foundation, but that would provide information to the public about baby loss and how often this happens and how little we hear of these losses. Try to take the stigma and taboo off of baby loss. Once a family is home and trying to settle in to the ‘new’ normal of life I would like to offer follow up services. Maybe take some flowers, an inspirational book and journal, to show the grieving family that we are a foundation that doesn’t just step in and leave, we are a foundation that will stick with them through their grief, hopefully eventually adding to our network of baby loss moms/fathers/families.
Goals
I would like to go ahead and get the foundation set up with the tax id number and the 501c3 designation. In doing the 501c3 designation it would show the community that we are serious about our mission of lending support to those going through this horrible loss and bring awareness to the community. Long term goals would be to start a network of moms/families going through this throughout the nation and then eventually world wide.
If awarded this grant I would immediately start the foundation, go through whatever processes I needed to in order to get the foundation legal. I believe that once I secured the foundation name and was working on the designation (as I know it can take up to and even over 6 months) I would get materials, flyers, pamphlets put together to be placed in doctors offices and hospital maternity wards. I would try to put together a website to showcase our foundation. I would basically make sure our name and foundation is out in the community and available to anyone who needs it.
If awarded this grant I expect that it would help to make our business a reality. At this point I don’t even know where the money would come from to get the ball rolling. A grant would be the way to get the flyers/pamphlets/tax designations/website at least started.
Okay guys, that’s it… hopefully that moved you to think about how important this foundation could be for you, your family or someone you know that has gone through a loss like this.
Love to all!
