Submitted by: Shasta Scott
The Swan Valley Chapter of The Compassionate Friends held a public information session on
April 19, 2012
Pictured here are: Bob Lewis – Advisory Board member, Tara Fahrenschon – Chapter Leader, Shasta Scott – Treasurer, Kathy Highmoor (back) – Advisory Board member and Erin Clouson.
The Compassionate Friends is an international, non-profit, non-denominational, self-help organization, offering friendship, understanding, grief education and hope for the future to all families that have experienced the death of a child at any age, from any cause.
We are a group of parents that have all lost a child. We are not councillors and we do not try to be. We are here to listen and provide support for one another. The group is open to Bereaved Parents only as is recommended by The Compassionate Friends Guidelines.
Our primary purpose is to aid in the reconciliation of grief and foster the physical and emotional health of the parents and surviving children. Our secondary purpose is to provide information and education about the grief of bereaved parents and their surviving children.
Our parent support meetings will start on May 9th at 7:30 pm at The Harley House, they will always be held on the second Wednesday of every month. For more information, contact Tara Fahrenschon 238-4539.
Compassionate Friends Creedo
We need not walk alone. We are The Compassionate Friends.
We reach out to each other with love, with understanding, and with hope.
Our children have died at all ages and from many different causes,
but our love for our children unites us.
Your pain becomes my pain just as your hope becomes my hope.
We come together from all walks of life, from many different
We are a unique family because we represent many races and creeds.
We are young, and we are old. Some of us are far along in our grief,
but others still feel a grief so fresh and so intensely painful that we feel helpless and see no hope.
Some of us have found our faith to be a source of strength; some of us are struggling to find answers.
Some of us are angry, filled with guilt, or in deep depression; others radiate an inner peace.
But whatever pain we bring to this gathering of The Compassionate Friends,
it is pain we will share, just as we share with each other our love for our children.
We are all seeking and struggling to build a future for ourselves,
but we are committed to building that future together,
as we reach out to each other in love and share the pain as well as the joy,
share the anger as well as the peace, share the faith as well as the doubts,
and help each other to grieve as well as to grow.
WE NEED NOT WALK ALONE. WE ARE THE COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS!
Joe Rousseau, Saginaw MI
NOTE: The Compassionate Friends Credo written by Joe Rousseau,
while attending a TCF USA National Board retreat in November of 1982
was unanimously approved as the “official credo”.