Charitable Peachy: A Caring Hand, The Billy Esposito Foundation Bereavement Center

A Caring Hand, The Billy Esposito Foundation Bereavement Center is a free standing, comprehensive bereavement center located in New York City and fully funded through A Caring Hand. The goal of the center is to meet a child and family in a caring environment. The programs implanted at the Center focus on remembering, coping, and community building - the essential components of grief work. Whom You Know thinks this is a wonderful Foundation!

It is hoped that all children and teens have a life filled with joy and happiness. Yet for some, their lives are forever changed at a young age when they experience the unfortunate death of a significant person from disasters such as fire, illnesses such as cancer, or human acts of violence. By some estimates, 90% of students will experience the loss of a family member before finishing high school (Ewalt and Perkins 1979) and it is believed that 5% of all children experience the death of a parent by age 18. (ERIC digest, Stuber, Hovsepian, and Mesrkhani)

Following a death there is often sadness, confusion, isolation, guilt, or even shame. For some young people, grief left unaddressed can lead to hopelessness, acting out, and poor school performance. No child or family should feel they are alone in their grief when facing the challenge of life without a cherished loved .

A Caring Hand, The Billy Esposito Foundation Bereavement Center helps family members learn emotionally healthy ways to live after the pain of someone’s death. The main program components of the Bereavement Center include:

* Group support: The 10 week peer group support program for children and teens and their caregivers runs in the Fall, Winter, and Spring. The program is based on common bereavement tasks and is co-facilitated by trained volunteers and mental health professionals.
* Individual evaluation and help: They evaluate bereaved individuals to assess how best to meet their needs. Services and referrals are tailored to meet the specific needs of family members.
* Outreach: They do outreach to individuals, schools, and organizations to provide information about services and recruit clients and group leaders.
* Consultation: They are available for consultation to educate professionals, schools, businesses, and service providers about grief and bereavement.
* Training: Volunteer training and supervision for group facilitators is provided.
* Supervision: Professional supervision and training of mental health trainees can be arranged.

Here in Manhattan, the bereavement center is located at:
305 Seventh Ave, 16th floor, New York, NY 10001


Group Program

Children, teens, and their caregivers are invited to attend one of our group sessions. Bereaved children often struggle with the pain of their grief and the pain of feeling different and alone. A centerpiece of the services is the 10 week peer group program for children, teens, and caregivers. At the Bereavement Center members of the family meet with others who are bereaved; with those who share a similar experience, who can validate their feelings, and ease their sense of isolation. The process of mutual aid, which occurs regularly in group settings, is educational and supportive and necessary to the recovery process.

* 6:15 – 6:45 PM: Family members join together for a light dinner and conversation . After dinner, participants break into individual groups.
* 6:45 - 8 PM Children and teens divide into groups according to age and caregivers meet in their own group. All groups are led by trained facilitators.
* All participants are expected to make a full 8 -week commitment in order to develop trust in each other and gain a sense of security. Family members are welcome to attend more than once or join a monthly drop in group.

FOUNDER'S LETTER

The date was September 11th 2001, the time was 8:46am when a plane crashed into Tower One of the World Trade Center , and changed our lives forever. The greatest man on earth, my father Billy Esposito, (aka Scoop) was taken unexpectedly from my family and all of his friends.

I will never forget the beautiful Tuesday morning in September when nothing seemed any different in our house from any other day. My dad kissed us all goodbye one by one as he always did early that morning before he left for his job at Cantor Fitzgerald where he was a Vice President and Partner. I was home alone getting ready for school, my mother was on her way to the beach and my brother was at work. Twenty minutes earlier, I had just spoken with my father and he had asked if I had seen his cell phone. I told him that I was certain that my mother had stolen it from him, as her phone was broken. I then told him to not worry about it and get back to work, make some money and that I loved him. I had no idea that those would be the last words I would ever have with my father.

Minutes later, I overheard a voice on my parent's answering machine that something had happened in my father's office and that we should turn on the television. With that I sprinted downstairs, turned on the television and could not believe my eyes and ears. My heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest and I felt a strong sense of nausea as I immediately reached for the phone and dialed my father's office. The response was one busy signal after another when I then thought of calling his cell phone, momentarily not remembering that we had just had a conversation that he did not have it with him. I then unsuccessfully attempted to contact the rest of my immediate family.

What was happening? What seemed like another ordinary day in our lives turned out to be nothing of the sort. At that moment, my mother came through the door hysterically crying followed by friends, my boyfriend, and my brother. We all sat glued to the television, hoping for a call from my father to tell us he had escaped or to wake up from a terrible nightmare. Moments later we watched his building collapse to the ground and me, my mom, and brother felt our lives collapse to the ground as well as we clung together and cried uncontrollably in trying to deal with this unimaginable tragedy.

My father started his career on Wall Street when he was 16 years old and it came to an unexpected halt at age 51. He was a loyal, ambitious and team oriented man that worked very hard to get to the top so that he could provide for his family. There are not enough adjectives in the dictionary to describe the type of husband, father, uncle, cousin, son, friend and colleague he was to all of us. He was very unique and had a gift of making everyone around him feel special. He lived by a motto that his mother taught him, "If you have it, you give it." My father had strong beliefs to be kind to everyone, love one another and believe in yourself. The most important thing to my father was his family as we were his whole world, there was nothing we could or could not do without one another.

My family and I have decided we would like to start a Foundation in memory of my father. His major passion was education, as he did not have the means growing up to obtain proper education. He always told us how important education was and he made sure he was able to provide us the opportunity he was never able to experience himself. He was also very fond of children and it pains me that he will never be able to meet his grandchildren. Therefore, the Foundation's mission is to provide bereavement services through our center and financial assistance for educational opportunities to children that have experienced the loss of a parent. Contributions from all of you will help my father's legacy live on and help touch so many other children that have experienced the tragedy of losing a parent as my brother and I have experienced. No matter what the age of the child or teen or the cause of death, we want to make sure that my father's major passion is achieved by as many children as possible as a way of telling him we miss him and want to make sure that we will continue his ways of making so many people feel his wonderful presence. I hope you will join us in helping this happen. I love you daddy.

Sincerely,
Susan Esposito, pictured above

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