I started going to Jeff’s Place only a couple of months after my dad passed away from suicide in 2016. I recall my mom pitching Jeff’s Place to my siblings and I and then driving us to our intake. I remember sitting in the car, refusing to get out, petrified of what I would face inside. As a stubborn, angsty thirteen-year-old who had just lost her father, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a circle and talk about my grief. How could anyone else possibly understand what I was going through?

Flash forward to a couple years later, I am a senior in high school and graduating from Jeff’s Place, clutching my stone that read “Hope Grows Here.” I loved the time I spent at Jeff’s Place. Instead of encouraging me to grieve and move on, Jeff’s Place encouraged me to incorporate my dad into many pockets of my life, holding onto him forever. I spent five beautiful years at Jeff’s Place and met some of the most phenomenal people. I met my best friend at Jeff’s Place who also lost her dad to suicide, and we have such a unique shared experience. To this day, we continue to build on years of lifelong friendship. She’s my go-to phone-call I make on a long road trip!

Another year passes, and I find myself starting my first year at Dartmouth College. I enjoyed most things about Dartmouth, but always felt like a little piece of my heart was missing. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. During my sophomore year, there was a suicide on campus. I didn’t know the individual who passed on a personal level, but campus is small enough where the death affected everyone. I felt so shaken up and grief surrounding my own father resurfaced. Following the suicide, the administrative response was minimal, at best. I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands.

Sophomore year, I applied for a $1,000 mental health related grant through the Dartmouth Student Government. I pitched the idea of Grief Group: a space for students who have experienced grief to meet weekly and use creative, hands-on ways to process grief and heavy emotions. This includes art-therapy, particular grief-related card games, writing letters to people who we’ve lost, and long-term projects that examine the trajectory of our grief. In subsequent years, the Interfaith space on campus, Tucker Center, took Grief Group under their wing administratively.

I’m now in my senior year at Dartmouth and am beginning to prepare a transition of leadership within Grief Group. I’m so grateful that Melissa, the executive director of Jeff’s Place, came to campus to facilitate workshops on campus for students, faculty, staff, and rising leadership of Grief Group. I feel confident that Grief Group will outlive my time at Dartmouth, thanks to the guidance and inspiration I gained from Jeff’s Place early in my life.