Hope, healing and hospitality
When we help others who are in pain and feel hopeless, we strengthen their sense of wellbeing, plus their families’ and our communities’ wellbeing. To offer hope to someone is to soften their anguish.
They stop having nightmares.
The Bellis™ grief support program, for mothers whose parental rights were terminated or transferred by the courts, offers hope and healing. After the initial meeting of our fourth support group in November 2022, Executive Director Jenny Eldredge said, “My heart could burst. The women were humble, respectful, funny, open and deeply in pain. Their stories were definitely intense, and our facilitators, Kelly Tronstad and Kjersta Hoffman’s facilitating was a master class in compassion, wisdom and patience. They talked about breaking the cycle of abusive relationships – starting with learning some self-love.”
This work matters
Bellis gets multiple inquiries each week from all over the country, coast to coast because there is nothing else exactly like this elsewhere in the US. In Minnesota alone, 45% of the court-ordered terminations of parental rights (TPR) between 2016 and 2021 were for mothers.
TPR comes with trauma, deep pain, grief and shame, and with ambiguous loss—when we mourn someone who is alive but not in our lives in the way we hoped. It’s a unique grief with no ritual (such as a funeral) to mark the loss. Bellis hires trauma-informed experts like Kelly and Kjersta who are prepared to facilitate our support groups.
Bellis’ expertise is creating safe spaces for these mothers to talk openly and honestly about their grief and loss, like the safe space we have held for 40 years for families with an adoption, and more recently foster care, connection. We offer commonality for mothers when someone else parents their children, without judgment and where they feel heard and understood.
Other comments from group participants validate that Bellis’ work is essential. From “I’ve been waiting for years for a group like this,” and “I want to be healthy for my children,” to “Can I still be loved, with what I’ve done in my life?”.
Your support is imperative
Our work is groundbreaking with unlimited growth opportunities for Bellis. Our leadership is actively at work to transform this program into something bigger than we may have ever done before. To provide this healing and supportive care nationwide, with recognition for Bellis as the expert in this sorely neglected area.
If you will help sponsor our grief support program, we would love to talk with you. Or, your $250 donation will cover the costs of one group session. Every donation helps and regular donations help the most with our planning. Please contact Executive Director Jenny Eldredge (jenny@mybellis.org or 952-944-0866) for more information.
Volunteers like Tuesday Drivers and Lunch Caterers can help us reduce costs, and they extend heartfelt hospitality, which is at the core of Bellis’ work. Learn more on our website. We can always use donations of snacks and store-bought cookie dough (that we bake on Tuesday mornings for participants).
In this holiday season, cheer and good tidings don’t abound for everyone. Challenges like illness, death or divorce, financial worry and more can dim the brightness of decorative lights. As can the journeys of adoption, foster care and lost parental rights. We know that holidays can feel lonely, and maybe especially so for mothers who aren’t parenting their children. The work Bellis is doing thanks to your compassionate support adds a touch of sparkle for those mothers who will again have holidays apart from their children.