Rainbows for All Children Peer-to-Peer Fundraiser

Rainbows for All Children Peer-to-Peer Fundraiser for Children's Grief Awareness

How Your Support Makes a Difference

American children are experiencing significant losses in their lives:

57% experience their parents' divorce
17% experience the death of a parent or sibling
5% experience the incarceration of their parent or caregiver
3% experience the deployment of a parent

Rainbows is here for those children through their grieving process. Can you support us in making sure no child ever grieves alone?

Why Rainbows?

Rainbows is dedicated to being the premier source of support for all youth as they navigate grief and heal from loss, whether from death, divorce, deployment, or other trauma. Rainbows fosters awareness that youth require support to heal. We nurture a community of effective Rainbows-trained Facilitators, supported with a repository of resources designed to guide youth in their grieving process.

Rainbows began as a grass roots mission founded by Suzy Yehl Marta, a divorced mother of three boys. In the Mid 1970's, Suzy was devastated by the end of her marriage. She quickly realized her sons were hurting as much as she was. Suzy tried to locate a support group for them, similar to the group she joined, but none existed. She refused to believe her children would “bounce back” on their own without a place to comfortably share their feelings about what they were experiencing. Working with other concerned parents, Suzy began organizing weekend retreats for the children in single parent homes. In three years, more than 800 youth benefited from the retreats. Suzy knew more needed to be done. She started working on a curriculum, the foundation of Rainbows for All Children, for children who experienced loss. The curriculum was designed to provide grieving elementary school children with an understanding of their new family unit, to help build a sense of self-esteem and to give them the tools to properly cope with their loss.

In 1983, three Chicago area private schools piloted the Rainbows curriculum. Over the next 30 years, this grass roots program expanded throughout the United States and into 16 countries, serving over 3.7 million youth.

November was Children's Grief Awareness Month, but just because the holidays are here doesn't mean the grieving is over. Many children experience loss the hardest during the holiday season. Here at Rainbows, "grief" has many definitions. A child could be mourning a loss due to death, abandonment, incarceration, or other trauma. At Rainbows what matters is how we help these children navigate their grief and heal from loss.

1. Register below to create a personal fundraising page and challenge others to help us raise $35,000. Set a goal and raise critical funding for our ongoing programming. Create your own page or join a team!

2. Tell your story! Whether you are a facilitator, board member, or an advocate supporting children in their grief, sharing why you support Rainbows helps others become aware of our mission and impact.

3. Be the first on your page to make a donation to Rainbows! When you let others know you support a cause, they are more likely to support it because of you.