Kate's Club

Support services programs provide therapeutic and recreational support to grieving children and their families in metro atlanta and throughout Georgia. The children we serve are called members and they participate in developmentally appropriate activities led by licensed therapists, artists, and trained volunteers. These programs take place at our clubhouse location and activities include clubhouse saturdays and sundays, family nights, holiday h.u.g.s, new member orientations, and park bench. We also offer this programming virtually, and in total provided 205 clubhouse programs in 2023. Clubhouse saturdays and sundays are typically 6-hour program days that offer social, recreational and therapeutic activities facilitated by buddy volunteers and professionals with expertise in art, music and recreation therapy. Clubhouse programming is offered both in-person and virtually; and in 2023, total program attendance was 639 clubhouse members.the holiday h.u.g.s. (healing, understanding, giving and support) program gives families some extra support around sibling's, mother's, father's day and the winter holidays. Kate's Club understands that the holidays can be a difficult time for their families and these four programs were held in 2023 with full attendance.each new clubhouse member and surviving parent or caregiver completed the new member orientation, and new members 8 years old and up completed a bereavement needs assessment. Park bench is a support and educational program for parents and caregivers of Kate's Club members. These programs were held both in-person and virtually in 2023, and a total of 398 parents and caregivers participated in either park bench or another program. Kate's Club's two new programs, lokate, our young adult program, and Kate's hub, our online platform for young adults, parents and caregivers, professional and our volunteers - grew in 2023, together reaching 411 grieving adults.memory walk was held at skyland park in atlanta and epworth by the sea in brunswick, Georgia in 2023.other program expenses are incurred in order to support the training of volunteers and the operation of program activities. In 2023, Kate's Club had 350 unique volunteers and 26 corporate volunteer groups.

Camp good mourning takes place twice a year and brings Kate's Club members together for traditional camp activities like swimming, rock climbing, paddle boating, and archery in conjunction with grief support activities that encourage campers to share their loss and learn coping strategies. Camp good mourning is open to all members, no matter how many times they have come to camp, by design, to create a mix of member's type of loss and time since their loved one died. Camp good mounring was held in both april and august at camp twin lakes facility.

Kc connects is our outreach and advocacy initiative that takes bereavement support outside of our clubhouse walls and into our community. Kc connects programming is structured so that grieving children and families can receive grief support regardless of any barriers that would prohibit them from getting to our clubhouse. We provide grief training for professionals, one-time grief education activities for students, crisis response for schools and organizations, and community-based (schools, juvenile courts, etc) grief groups. In 2023, kc connects trained 1,482 professionals and supported 647 students and youth through school- and court-based grief groups.