TABLE New Mexico’s non-profit profiles are supported by the Santa Fe Community Foundation. Together, we spotlight nonprofit leaders and organizations who are finding inventive ways to do the impossible in the midst of multiple crises. In the months ahead, TABLE will bring you stories of how they are helping our neighbors get access to the opportunities and services they need in the areas of Community Leadership, Education, Early Childhood, and in our Native American, Black, and LGBT+ communities.
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Gerard’s House: Helping Children and Families Through Loss
“New Mexico ranks the highest in the nation for childhood bereavement, with 1 in 7 kids experiencing the death of sibling or parent before age 18,” says Gerard’s House Executive Director Nicole Maes-Gonzales. Gerard’s House supports children and families by providing free bilingual bereavement services to those experiencing the death or separation from a loved one. The organization offers weekly peer support groups, individual sessions, summer camps, teen movie nights, crisis response, and caregiver support to youth aged 3 to 21, as well as adult support groups.
Maes-Gonzales’ connection to the organization runs deep and her life mirrors that of many of those Gerard’s House serves – she lost a parent at age four, and her only sibling and remaining parent before she was 27. She served first as a volunteer since the organization’s inception in 1997, then as a board member. She became Executive Director eight years ago. Today Maes-Gonzales directs 10 staff and a budget of over $700,000 that comes from individual and corporate donations, foundations, faith communities and local, state, and federal grants. Programs are delivered by more than 70 volunteers ranging in ages from 20 to 94. This dedicated cohort includes mental health professionals, students studying counseling, and those who have suffered their own losses.
For All Types of Grief
For Gerard’s House, grief encompasses not only the death of a loved one, but also separation through incarceration, deportation, abandonment, kidnapping, or borders. To serve this latter growing community, the organization created Nuestra Jornada, a group specially designed for families with immigrant roots from Mexico and Central America that incorporates cultural traditions into healing.
“We’ve also adapted to serve those who don’t feel safe leaving their homes by reactivating the virtual support groups we offered during the pandemic,” she says. Gerard’s House expanded its reach further by opening a physical space in the Española Valley and adding support groups designed with and serving the Native American community.
“There was no place like Gerard’s House for me when I was a child,” Maes-Gonzales says of how Gerard’s House aims to change the stigma surrounding grief and mental health, fostering a grief-sensitive community through education and outreach. “My heart fills when I see kids learning how to support themselves in the future with tools they’ll use over a lifetime. When I think of the ripple effect of how those tools can be extended to partners and community members and that cultural shift, that’s success.”
Story by Kelly Koepke
Photos Courtesy of Gerard’s House
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