In 1996, the year Tu Nidito began grief-support services for
Tucson-area children and their families, the organization worked with
12 children. According to assistant director Ciara Meyer, that number
has grown to more than 800 children per year, who come to the
organization for help dealing with the death of a parent or loved one,
or help coping with their own diagnosis of a serious illness. A
Beaucoup Congé is hosting a bead-party fundraiser for the
nonprofit on Friday, Sept. 11, at 355 E. Fort Lowell Road. Make a piece
of jewelry for $40 per adult or $5 per child. For more information
about Tu Nidito, call 322-9155, or visit tunidito.org.
What does Tu Nidito do?
We help children whose lives have been impacted by serious illness
or grief. … In 2008, we started a new program specifically for
children with a parent diagnosed with cancer.
Are children the only ones helped when they come to Tu
Nidito?
Illness and grief impact the entire family, and not just the
children, so we know we need to help the entire family unit. Parents
receive their own support. We provide them with the grief support they
need, but also how they can help their children. We are not always
prepared to explain these things to our children. Adults need help to
figure out how to do that.
Do people come here through a specific referral?
Anyone can call us and say they need our services or know someone
who does, but a majority of our referrals come from teachers and school
counselors. When a parent has died or is diagnosed with cancer, those
referrals come from physicians and hospital social workers.
How did the organization start?
Tu Nidito was really formed by a group of people—physicians,
businesses and, primarily, parents who had a child diagnosed with a
life-threatening illness. When it was time to leave the hospital, there
were no services available … outside of the hospital, where they
really needed it. There was a little boy named Jimmy Busey who had a
rare type of a brain tumor, and he had spent most of his life in the
hospital. At 6, he was sent home to live out the last few weeks of his
life, but the hospital was his comfortable place. On a sectional sofa
in the corner, his family made this little nest for him. They called it
Jimmy’s Little Nest. It’s where everyone would come and visit him. His
mother was very vocal in that: “There needs to be support for us when
we leave the hospital.” When it came time to find a name, (Your Little
Nest) was suggested, but in Spanish—Tu Nidito. That’s how we got
our name.
How do you charge for your services?
We do not charge for any of our services. Anyone who needs us can
come to us without cost.
Then how do you get the funds needed to operate?
Mostly through individual donations or fundraisers through special
events.
What’s your annual budget?
It costs $1,000 a year to help a child, and we help more than 800
children. We do it all with funds from the community. … We have 12
staff members. Ten are full-time, but we are only able to help as many
children as we do with more than 175 volunteers.
Do you do any follow-up with your clients?
We do regular assessments that we complete twice a year with each of
our family members. … We want to do long-term evaluations and
recently received a small grant. … We’ll invite (clients) to come
back and find out what the long-term benefits are of grief support.
Finding past clients may not be too difficult. Often, they come back
and volunteer, telling us, “You’ve changed my life. How can I give
back?”
This new program in which you work with children whose parents
are diagnosed with cancer—how did it start?
For years, we’d often get calls from mothers diagnosed with cancer.
They wanted support for their children. We didn’t want to say no, but
we had no choice. For a long time, we wanted to do this, but didn’t
have funding or space. In 2006, we became an Angel Charity. The
($714,357 in) funding allowed us to expand on our same site. We built
an adjacent building, increased parking and added a playground. It was
a needed program, but what we like to point out is that none of our
services are duplicated in the community. … No one else helps
children and families deal with grief and loss.
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2009.