The Lewiston-based fund for families grieving a child is running dry
Tammy Fournier of Greene looks up at a plaque dedicated to her son, Gunner Smith, Tuesday morning on a wall in the Memorial Garden at St. Mary's Hospital in Lewiston. Fournier co-founded the Colby Fund to give families grieving over the loss of a children the kind of support she needed after the loss of her son in 1991. (Russ Dillingham/Staff Photographer)
Without the support of a Lewiston nonprofit, Traci Alden says she would not have been able to bury her children.
Alden gave birth to two stillborn babies between 2008 and 2012. When she lost her daughter, she couldn’t bring herself to bury the ashes. When she lost her son four years later, an organization called the Colby Fund paid for the cremation, memorial services and urn.
It gave her the space to grieve.
“You don’t expect it,” said Alden, 44, of Auburn. “You don’t have money set aside. We weren’t financially in a place where we could do that. So, because of the Colby Fund, I was actually able to bury both of my children together, which is absolutely amazing.”
Over the past year, the volunteer-run nonprofit paid $18,000 to support two dozen grieving families and cover the costs associated with losing their children. But fundraising challenges have jeopardized the future of those services. The organization fell $4,000 short of its fundraising goal at the annual Walk to Remember in Rumford earlier this month, said Tammy Fournier, who co-founded the Colby Fund in 2003.
That annual fundraiser has sustained decades of services, including hospital bereavement trainings and advocacy. Now, Fournier said she is setting aside all remaining funds for the financial assistance program.
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“Parents are buying cribs and diapers,” Fournier said. “They’re not buying caskets and grave sites. The Colby Fund helps defer those costs for those families, and we are at risk of not being able to provide for those services in our community shortly.”
She said declining attendance at Colby Fund events, from the annual walk to a monthly support group in Lewiston, seems to correspond with the closure of birthing units in the area and across Maine in recent years. A trained birth and bereavement doula, Fournier has found herself traveling more and more to hospitals outside of Lewiston-Auburn to be with families as they navigate postpartum bereavement, including to Portland, Norway and even Portsmouth.
Many families say they can’t make the drive to Lewiston.
But the need has not changed. Roughly one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage and there are about 2 million stillbirths each year, according to the World Health Organization. The Colby Fund provides support to families that lose a child from any stage of pregnancy to 3 years old.
A plaque dedicated to Gunner Smith is seen Tuesday morning on a wall in the Memorial Garden at St. Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston. (Russ Dillingham/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
Fournier did not have that kind of support after losing her son, Gunner, at 26 weeks. She remembers leaving the hospital in 1991 with nothing but a prescription and a recommendation to see a counselor. There weren’t support groups. Her friends were all having babies.
She didn’t know how to talk about her son, who she never got to see or hold.
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“A person that has a stillborn feels awkward having a funeral for a baby that no one’s met or loved, except them,” Fournier said. “And when you’re a young couple, you go: Do I spend that kind of money? Nobody loved them like I did. They weren’t born yet. Who’s going to come for my dead baby?”
When someone else offers to pay for the funeral, those questions fade into the background.
Fournier is hoping to find sponsors who will help sustain the Colby Fund. Consistent funding would help, but grant applications take time that she and the other volunteers don’t have. Right now, she just wants to get the word out.
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At the memorial gardens at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center and Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, dozens of memorial plaques dot the wall with loving inscriptions. Alden has one for her daughter, paid for by the Colby Fund. She still hasn’t found the right words for her son.
Fournier tells her they will come.
On the day of the Walk to Remember, Alden was cheering on her 13-year-old daughter at a softball tournament. Life has gotten busy, in a good way. It’s been years since she attended the support group.
She still sees the Colby Fund as a necessity, for herself and other Maine families who have yet to suffer the most unthinkable loss.
“I needed somebody that could truly understand my pain, my heartache, and basically someone there to teach me how to get through life,” Alden said. “That has always been the Colby Fund.”
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Hannah Kaufman covers health and access to care in central and western Maine. She is on the first health reporting team at the Maine Trust for Local News, looking at state and federal changes through the. More by Hannah Kaufman
