Community Service

Memory Box Program

ICHA Memory Boxes
Kathy Griswold, work 367-4757 or home 461-1137
Kris Winston 463-9767

Thank you to everyone who has been so generous with their time and talent in supporting our Memory Box Programs. We need to keep up with the good work, since we never know when the call for more will come and more boxes will be needed. As always, if you need a box or have any questions, contact Kathy at work, and she will arrange to get some to you.

February 2010 Chapter Program will be painting Memory Boxes which are desperately needed (unfortunately).  We hope you can join us.

Program History

the following is from www.memoryboxes.org

This program allows artists and crafters to use their creativity to benefit others by creating hand-crafted Memory Boxes to be given by hospital bereavement counselors and nurses to the families of newborn infants who die in the hospital or are stillborn. The program's sole purpose is to connect artists with hospitals in need of boxes. At no time do the artists send us a box! We simply act as the administrative "go between". We contact and follow up with hospitals to be sure that they have an active bereavement program, and that someone at the hospital will take responsibility for the boxes.

We do not wish to be given "credit" for the boxes. The only reason we exist is to make sure qualified hospitals are connected with individuals and groups that wish to create boxes for them, and to make sure that the boxes go to bereavement counselors that will take responsibility that the boxes get to the families they are created for. We track the number of boxes going to each hospital each month so that no one hospital is bombarded with boxes while others do not have any. Each time a new box is ready, the coordinator is contacted, the member generally does not continue to send to the same hospital.

How it all started . . .

In early 1997, Rosemary Armesto sent a message to the ToleNet email mailing list (now defunct) that changed many lives. Rosemary told us of a one-time project to paint memory boxes for families that lost infant children. In April of 1998, another list member (who asked not to be credited) came to artist Tera Leigh, ToleNet's then Owner, and asked if ToleNet would help publicize this program on an International basis. This list member's sister-in-law had lost a child just a week before term. She remembered Rosemary's message and painted a memory box for her sister-in-law. She related a story much like Rosemary wrote of. She was profoundly affected by the reaction of her sister-in-law and the hospital staff.

Tera began some research and learned that few hospitals have true infant bereavement programs. She learned about the difficulties for both the families and the nursing staff in coping with these tragic deaths. When Tera asked her mother, Marie Gemmil, to help and they began to call hospitals to find out if they had a program the reaction astounded us. Nearly every person we talked to began to cry when we told them we wanted to help! We heard horror stories from nurses who had to scrounge to wash a dirty bag in order to have something to give families the child's birth and death certificate, wrist band, footprints, etc.

We heard from women running support groups about the challenges of coping with such a loss. The thing that we heard over and over was that no one wanted to talk about it. It was too difficult, no one knew what to say. What the families craved most was to be able to talk about the child that they'd lost. Instead they heard, "it was for the best", or "you'll have another one". These boxes are a small way that we can help acknowledge the importance of the life these women carried inside of them. Through our art, we can create a keepsake box that the family may keep for generations. At the least, it will be a treasured memento to a family who has few mementos of a too-brief life. We think that this is a very worthy project and are proud to be a part of it.

Since the launch in June, 1998 at the National Society of Decorative Painters convention, the Memory Box Artist Program has shipped over 100,005 boxes to hospitals around the world.

Memory Box artists do not have to be members of the mailing list, to participate in the program. Many artists, such as Jamie Mills-Price, Susie Wolfe,CDA, Phyllis Tilford, CDA, Lina Hoffman, Karen Chase, and Tera Leigh have donated free patterns. 

Information About Infant Bereavement and Loss

The website when selecting the link above provides history and additional information about infant loss and bereavement.