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Winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund - May 6, 2008
Kris Grawitch Honored with $5,000 Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund Award
May 6, 2008

Breese, Illinois Resident Wins Cash Award To Fund Ongoing Peer-Support Program For Widows Raising Young Children


(New York, NY, May 6, 2008) Breese, Illinois resident Kris Grawitch, 30, is one step closer to driving meaningful change in her community and creating a better tomorrow. Kris was named this week’s winner of the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, a weekly $5,000 cash award program from Avon Products, Inc. to support individuals in their work to empower women. She is among the first Hello Tomorrow Fund winners to be selected by a newly expanded panel of judges that now includes Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York and actress Phylicia Rashad. Kris’s award will support Parenting Alone, an on-going peer support and social network she created in the St. Louis Metropolitan area, for widowed women raising young children.

For many years, Kris has volunteered her time helping women and children. After she received her Masters in Developmental Psychology, she wanted to utilize her passion and expertise to help grieving children and began work at a grief center providing group and individual counseling to children and teens. It was during this experience that Kris witnessed a severe gap in available support for young widowed parents and her passion quickly shifted. Sixty three percent of grieving children in the St. Louis Metropolitan area live in female headed households. The need for a support program became apparent and Kris created Parenting Alone to help this vulnerable population of widowed mothers with young children.

Parenting Alone empowers parenting widows to take control of their lives and move forward after devastating loss through monthly support meetings and group outings that enable both mothers and children to interact and share. The 250 widows served thus far by Parenting Alone have become a second family to many of its members. Some have been widowed for three or four years, while others suffered a more recent loss. “There is so much hope in grief,” says Kris. “The really bad stuff has already happened, I get to be there on the rebuilding side.” Kris has also setup a system where an existing member serves as a mentor to the newly widowed mothers, thereby creating lifelong friendships and a vital support system. Kris was awarded an initial grant to launch this important program two years ago, but she finds it increasingly challenging to keep Parenting Alone running. That is where the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund comes in.

Thanks to her Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund award, Kris will be able to fully fund the program for six months, including monthly peer-support group meetings including meals, snacks for children, bereavement literature and a social worker to facilitate the group. The funds will also cover the six monthly social outings that help widows and their children socialize in the community surrounded by others who understand the difficulty of public excursions following the death of a partner. Thanks to Kris’ vision and the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund, Parenting Alone will be able to empower women and their families to move forward with the necessary support to build a new life after loss.

Kris’ winning application to the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund met the criteria of clearly presenting unique and achievable objectives to empower women or girls and ultimately improve society. It was selected from a pool of strong contenders by an expert panel of judges, including personal finance expert, Suze Orman, actress Phylicia Rashad and Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York. “Creating a support group, offering positive alternatives and offering a safe place to grieve with others is critical to beginning a new life after a loss,” noted fellow judge Lynn Stekas of Kris’ proposal.

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