Content warning: This story contains a mention of sexual assault.

Evanston-headquartered nonprofit Rainbows for All Children has provided various forms of grief support to children for decades. Now, the organization has a broad global presence.

Founded in 1983 in the Chicago area, Rainbows for All Children offers support groups to grieving children from ages 3 to 18. The organization trains adult volunteers working in community organizations like schools, churches and libraries to lead support groups for children grappling with loss.

Whether the grief is from a deceased loved one, an incarcerated relative or abandonment, Rainbows for All Children casts a wide net of support. The nonprofit calls Evanston home.

Rainbows for All Children also has several relationships with Northwestern, according to Community Education and Advocacy Manager Liz Falstreau. The organization collaborates with The Brady Scholars, a group of students that discusses ethics, values and their applications, to fundraise. Additionally, The Family Institute facilitates support groups.

The foundation’s guiding ethos is to extend support to children across all grief experiences, Falstreau said.

“A  lot of other grief organizations will just focus on loss through the death of a family member,” Falstreau said. “Where Rainbows is different is that we consider all factors. Maybe it’s not a loss through death, maybe it’s a loss through incarceration or abandonment or even deportation.”

Falstreau said Rainbows for All Children emphasizes the importance of facilitators hailing from the communities they serve.

This consideration allows for facilitators to be more anchored in their groups. 

“ We train facilitators because we believe that the best facilitators of these groups come from within the communities themselves,” Falstreau said. 

Illinois resident Suzy Yehl Marta founded the organization after a divorce. As she underwent a period of grieving her divorce, she attended a church group for adults in the same position, which provided a refreshing sense of solace and relief, according to Falstreau. Yehl Marta died of pancreatic cancer in 2013.

However, Yehl Marta could not find similar support groups for her children. After her son Tim Yehl critiqued this disparity, Yehl Marta was eager to find a solution. Utilizing her “entrepreneurial spirit,” according to Falsteau, Yehl Marta reached out to counseling professionals and contacts in Chicagoland to create Rainbows for All Children. 

Now, Rainbows for All Children services between 50,000 and 75,000 students worldwide and offers programming in 42 states, according to Executive Director Stephanie M. Garrity. Since its founding, the nonprofit has served 3.5 million children.

Garrity said she joined Rainbows for All Children with a desire to help children navigate the complexities of grief. For her, the journey to grief support was personal. Soon after a divorce, Garrity’s sister lost her 3-year-old child. She rushed to join a grief support organization, recognizing others in similar positions.

“ I started researching what resources were available and there really weren’t very many,” she said. 

Before joining Rainbows for All Children eight years ago, Garrity said she met Yehl Marta at a fundraising dinner. Soon after, she joined a rape crisis center, where she worked for over five years. In 2016, she interviewed with Rainbows for All Children following Yehl Marta’s death.

Advisory Board Member Anjum Abbasi-Voight said she joined Rainbows for All Children in the mid-1990s after the head nurse at the hospital she worked at introduced her to the organization. 

After training with the Joliet Archdiocese she became a group facilitator. Afterward, she held support groups in Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, Illinois. 

Abbasi-Voight said she witnessed many heart-rending moments in her time at the organization. However, one that is crystalized in her memory is when a child told weekly stories about adventures with his father, only to be informed by another Rainbows for All Children volunteer that the child’s father had abandoned him long before. 

“It was important for me to realize that kids sometimes say things because that’s what is in their heart and what they want, what they think is normal,” she said.

Falstreau said Rainbows for All Children is among too few organizations with the mission of facilitating children on their journeys through grief, and said that she would have benefited from a like-minded organization in her own childhood.  

“(Rainbows) would have been really useful for when (my family) moved states, or when we found out my mom had breast cancer,” she said.

Throughout her life, Abbasi-Voight has lived in various states, from Wisconsin to Illinois and Colorado — she named Rainbows for All Children as a connecting thread. 

Through impactful moments like watching people realize they can be support systems to others, and children destigmatizing their own grief, Abbasi-Voight has had a full-circle journey within the organization.

Email: gabehawkins2028@u.northwestern.edu

X: @gabe19violin

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