Support Grief Group Through Art Auction

Heart of the Cumberland giving you the chance to purchase artistic works to support the non-profit’s work.

The Christian non-profit provides peer-support groups for all ages of people going through grief. Development Director Dianne Callahan said it also supports a new Putnam County Schools group that encourages students to talk about their pain.

“By them learning a healthy way to handle these emotions, I think it is suicide prevention, I think it is drug prevention, and we want to keep going and we want it keep growing because there’s such a need,” Callahan said.

August is Grief Awareness Month. Callahan said she wants people to be aware and to give a hug and an extra smile to someone who is grieving. The auction will run through Tuesday.

Callahan said Heart of the Cumberland helps students understand emotions such as anger, feeling alone, and an feeling guilty. The non-profit works with students as young as second grade by doing demonstrations, drawing, and using stuffed animals.

“The way that we work with the students that are that young is by art,” Callahan said. “They really don’t understand what they’re feeling.”

Callahan said kids often feel responsible for the mistakes adults in their lives make.

Callahan said people going through grief can feel alone and different than other people, that is why peer-support groups are so important. The groups help people relate and connect with others dealing with similar hard situations.

“There’s so many hurting people, it’s indicated all the time by people getting on drugs, by suicides, by people not making good grades in school and all that,” Callan said. “We want to grow, we want to help more people.”