Ronnie's House for Hope

Ronnie’s House for Hope is a program devoted to offering peer support grief services to child, teens and their families at no cost. We do this through giving them a safe space to share experiences, feelings and to learn about grief. Through activities and building community we can find support, understanding and a place to feel understood. We travel throughout the school district running groups, and are very excited to be opening a center to begin evening groups for youth. Grief is a taboo topic in society, most people just don’t know what to say. Giving them tools to understand what grief is and how it evolves is vital. Unresolved grief can lead to many negative things such as a loss of interest in things, depress, anxiety, isolation, self-medicating, and even suicide. We also included last year Forever 18 Fentanyl Awareness. This is an awareness program that we do throughout schools for students, parents and staff to educate them on the dangers of Fentanyl in hopes of saving lives. Contracting with Riverside University Health Services, these services are also free to our school districts throughout Riverside County.

Contact: Jennifer Loza Founder/President

Email: jenniferLLoza@gmail.com

Phone: (760) 485-9019

Website: www.ronnieshouseforhope.org

Ronnie's House For Hope is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides peer support bereavement services to children/teens and their families. Providing safe place for them to share their experiences and feelings with peers who have similar experiences. They learn to understand that there is a name for what they are feeling... grief and coping skills to help manage it. We believe that unresolved grief can lead to depression, anxiety, slipping of grades, isolation, self medicating and other negative effects. We are currently holding grief groups in 8 schools within Desert Sands Unified School District. We provide 3 sessions of 8 week groups onsite with children recommended by the school counselors. Doing an array of activities about grief helps to open conversations between the children to see how similar some are and discover they are not the only one coping with different emotions. We are hopeful to begin our evening groups soon so we can begin to incorporate the guardians as well and offer them the support they need, with the hope of offering healing to the entire family. This amazing opportunity will allow us to afford the supplies, time, driving and cost into traveling to all the schools. We are very grateful for the support of Anderson's Children's Foundation.