By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
After being canceled twice due to the pandemic, the Center for Life Experience’s Healing Kids’ Hearts retreat is set to return this year, allowing children the opportunity to share their experiences of the loss of a loved one in a supportive atmosphere.
The retreat began in 2015, running each year until 2019, according to Center for Life Experiences Executive Director Ann Leiker.
“We wanted it to be safe for our volunteers and our kids,” Leiker said, “so we didn't have it for a couple of years. And now, this March, we're going to give it a good go.”
This year’s event is scheduled for March 26, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Hays Senior Center.
“This year, we're really pleased that the Senior Center here in Hays has offered to sponsor us,” Leiker said. “It's a really neat location. And there are wonderful people there who will be helping us and become buddies for the kids that day.”
Along with the seniors from the center, she said any volunteer is welcome to participate.
“We would be glad to have (other) senior volunteers,” Leiker said. “We also have reached out to the university to their students in different areas as mentors. So, we have a wide variety of volunteers, and we can always use more of it. The more the merrier.”
Volunteers will complete training for the retreat in the coming weeks, she said.
Volunteers will interact with the children, completing a variety of activities, while talking and sharing about their experiences.
“We have a lot of really good, fun times,” Leiker said. "(At first) they're a little quiet, maybe wondering what's going to happen. But by the end of the day, they're pattering up a storm, and making new friends and just feeling like the weight of the world has been lifted off their shoulders.”
Activities planned include making a memory box, along with other activities designed to help the children explore and deal with grief.
“Kids decorate the boxes we have, and they can put photographs or keepsakes or whatever in the box of their loved ones,” Leiker said.
“We're looking forward to ... helping them learn how to honor those people who have been significant in their lives and to grieve loss in a healthy way and to keep moving on with their lives. But to keep those special people close to them in their heart.”
She said key to the day is sharing with others who have experienced loss, in an effort to continue healing.
“It's just really a lot of it is sharing and not keeping it all stuffed inside,” Leiker said. Through that sharing, she said, the children find they are not alone and “there are other people, there are other friends, there are children, other children, who are going through the same thing.
“The kids can share with each other, and the buddy can also help them know that it's OK to feel grief and loss. And to honor the people they loved in specific ways. That's OK. We just want to do it in a healthy way.”
Around 20 participants between the ages of 7 to 12 typically participate in the retreat, with limited spots available.
Cover image courtesy Pixabay