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Title:   Empty Chair
Artist: Tristyn Leos
Organization: HospiceMidland
Other: “The empty chair represents my fathers missing piece from our lives.”

“HospiceMidland has offered support programs to children in grief since 1992. In 2003, we established Rays of Hope Children’s Grief Centre as a permanent facility to offer ongoing programs to children whose lives have been turned upside down due to losses and changes. Rays of Hope serves children who have experienced a loss due to death, divorce, abandonment, incarceration or other painful transitions. Each year the Grief Centre has been blessed to support over 400 children as they experience tools of expression, learn new coping skills, discover the freedom of self-expression when dealing with a loss and are able to see and feel “rays of hope” in their individual lives.”
“Rays of Hope is truly an active place of “doing” the work of grief. We utilize the expressive and creative arts as tools of expression for the healing process. Children and adolescents are invited to participate in a variety of TOE (Tools of Expression) Classes. TOE classes include music, art, quilting, drama, storytelling, journaling, creative writing, scrapbooking, clay, cartooning, and photography.”
“Photography has been a wonderful took for our adolescents to “do” the work of grief. We encourage our teens to show us what grief looks like through the lens of a camera. We have found when given a safe “tool” teens so unbelievable grief work. It is as though the camera becomes a protection between their hearts and the outside. We are convinced that this work is a healing factor for the teens.”