Widow Match Program

[MartyT]

The following comes to us from Michele Neff Hernandez, founder of Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation, and I'm delighted to share it here:

Widow Match is the very first program of the Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation, and based on the real life friendship that developed via e-mail between SSLF founder, Michele Neff Hernandez, and her best friend (and SSLF board member) Michelle Dippel Dahlberg. The two Michel/lles realized that widowhood was easier to navigate with a widowed friend by your side.

The concept of the Widow Match program is that a widow will enter her name into a database of other widowed women also interested in the program, and then she will be matched with up to three other widows who are within ten years of herself in age, lost their partner within six months of the person they are matched with, and have the same family situation with regard to whether they have children. Using only these simple criteria, and an email address, each person who signs up for Widow Match has the opportunity to communicate, support, cry with and laugh with another widow who understands the ups and downs of widowed life. We began this program with not even one widow...and today there are three thousand people in our program. In 2010, SSLF launched the Widower Match program which works on the same premise, but matching widowers with other widowers for pen pal type support.

Due to the growth and popularity of the Widow Match programs, Soaring Spirits is currently expanding this effort to set up pen pal relationships for other groups of grieving people. The program will be unavailable until July 15th, when we will re-launch Widow Match with its new look, new features, and increased security measures. We can't wait to share this freshly updated program with you!

While you are waiting for the Widow Match program to be up and running, please visit our 24/7 on-line support community called the Widowed Village. You will find amazing people who GET you in the village!

The one thing that we at Soaring Spirits hope to prove to you is that even if you feel like the only widowed person in the world....you are NOT alone.

Stay tuned!

[Lina]

That sounds really awesome...thank you for sharing this information.

[widower]

So men are excluded?

[ANC1117]

I wonder if they have a Matching Widower program?

[MartyT]

The program includes men as well as women. As stated in the post, "In 2010, SSLF launched the Widower Match program which works on the same premise, but matching widowers with other widowers for pen pal type support."