When Jill Anderson lost her daughter to an accidental overdose in 2018, she looked for other parents who understood exactly what she was carrying — and didn’t find many. So this year, she built the place she’d been looking for.
Anderson started Village of Hope Grief Support, a group for parents grieving the loss of a child, after posting on Facebook to gauge interest. More than 50 people responded. She said the response told her something she’d suspected: if she needed a space like this, other mid-Missouri parents almost certainly did too.
The group has been meeting monthly ever since at the Columbia Public Library, with Anderson covering the small cost of snacks, drinks, and the meeting room herself so nothing stands between a parent and a seat at the table.
It’s open to any parent working through the loss of a child — there’s no sign-up fee, no referral needed, and no restriction on how long ago the loss happened. The group isn’t limited to Columbia; it serves mid-Missouri parents broadly.
How to join: Meeting dates and times are posted on the group’s Facebook page, Village of Hope Grief Support. That’s also the best way to reach Anderson directly with questions before a first visit.
Grief support groups are hard to build and harder to sustain — they depend on someone willing to keep showing up, room after room, for people they’ve often never met before. Anderson has been doing exactly that, one Thursday-night library room at a time, for parents who needed to hear that somebody else understood.
Leave a Reply