A summer camp helps children deal with grief

By Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield

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    OWATONNA, Minnesota (WCCO) — One southern Minnesota town is approaching grief and loss in a unique way.

Owatonna High School has lost a teacher and a student and dealt with several other unexpected deaths over the past few months.

It’s home to 26,000 people. Owatonna is a place of beauty, and as of late, a place of pain.

Amanda Floy lost her father and cousin. And Jodie Valentine lost her husband.

“I have not been afraid to talk about it. I never wanted my children to ever think that their father disappeared,” Valentine, co-founder of Owatonna Grief Camp, said.

She wants other kids to talk about their pain, too. So she partnered with Floy, a pastor at Trinity Lutheran, to start the grief conversation at the beginning with Owatonna’s youngest residents.

“Kids are a lot of times left out of conversations around death and dying or we get really nervous talking about grief with kids,” Floy said.

That’s why they started a summer grief camp.

“We are all here because something important to us has changed or something important to us is gone and we’re all here for that same reason so we are not alone are we? We’re not alone, we are all together here,” Valentine said.

Each camper has a story.

“The only reason people why come is because if someone died in your family or you are going through divorce,” Payton said.

Caen and Evelyn lost their dad, a beloved farmer, in January. They’ve been dealing with every emotion in the book.

“Sad and mad and sometimes lonely,” Evelyn said.

So she’s making a bear to help her expressive personality.

“My nickname is Sassy,” Evelyn said.

The students are using art, literature and their bodies at the camp.

“They are so resilient, and they are so eager to talk about hard subjects and I think sometimes we shelter them from these hard things or we use language to try to soften death and that doesn’t help them,” Floy said.

These kids are building skills many adults don’t have.

“We’ve been forced to, we’ve been forced to. And you could push it aside or you could walk into the pain. And that’s the only way through pain is to walk through it,” Floy said.

And together they are sitting together in their pain.

“I just want them to feel like they are not alone,” Valentine said. “I want them to feel like there is a way to navigate hard times,”

Because there can be good in grief.

“I want these kids to feel like, hey, there’s going to be tough times, but these tools will help guide you through and you will find light on the other side,” Valentine said. “You will find happiness.”

The camp organizers say there are two big takeaways for parents:

Use real language when talking about loss. For example, actually saying “Grandpa has died.”

It’s also important to take them to funerals so they can see how commmunity comes together in times of need.

There are also several other grief programs in Owatonna, at the high school, a local coffee shop and an ongoing ministry at Trinity Lutheran Church.

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