In 2018, I began developing an initiative with the working title “The Grief Project.” It would eventually become WPSU’s Speaking Grief, and it would change my life.
In the early days, we were told no one would want to fund a project about grief. Thankfully, those voices were wrong. We connected with the New York Life Foundation, a leader in childhood bereavement, who immediately understood the power of storytelling and educational media in advancing grief literacy.
As fate would have it, the project we had been building for years launched in May 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic thrust grief into the global spotlight.
Five years later, I still get emails, sometimes weekly, from organizations hosting screenings and discussions inspired by Speaking Grief. In nearly two decades in public media, I’ve worked on many projects I’m proud of, but none have generated this level of sustained engagement.
This flagship initiative became the foundation for related projects like Learning Grief and Follow the Nudge, all built on the same hope: to help people feel less alone in their losses and to give families, communities, and professionals the tools to better support one another.
To mark this five-year milestone, Penn State Outreach recently featured the project in an article that includes a Q&A with me about the journey and its impact, which you can read here.
WPSU also created a short video capturing the project’s on-going impact:
https://player.vimeo.com/video/1106149926?badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479
As WPSU continues to celebrate the five-year anniversary and ongoing impact of Speaking Grief, I’m reflecting on what an extraordinary journey this project has been, why we do what we do, and how powerful it is when media connects hearts as well as minds. I am endlessly grateful to the teams, partners, and grieving people who make this work possible.
Every message we receive from someone who feels less alone reminds me why this work matters.
Recent Comments