Group lends peer support to help grievers cope with loss of loved ones

After seeking community support when their 20-year-old daughter, Christi, was killed by a drunk driver in 1985, Susan and Don Cox decided to fill the void they found in local resources available to help individuals cope with the loss of a loved one.

"[The Coxes'] experience was that everyone they knew expected them to grieve for a respectable amount of time, but then get over it and move on," said Cara Fox, executive director of The Christi Center, the nonprofit support organization the couple founded in 1987. "The most comfort they found was in gathering with other people who had lost loved ones and knew what it felt like."

The Christi Center, which is headquartered off Burnet Road in Central Austin, offers peer support for individuals who have lost a spouse, child, parent, friend or neighbor. The center is open to all Central Texas residents, including those from Williamson, Hays and Bastrop counties. The organization also keeps a satellite office at the Georgetown Community Resource Center, 805 W. University Ave., to help adult residents cope with their loss.

The center also provides very limited individualized services.

"Susan and Don know 24 years' worth of people and their stories, and Susan never forgets anything, ever. They are just the heart and soul of this organization," Fox said.

The Christi Center has received huge support from the community, Fox said, which has helped the organization grow the services it provides as well as the space in which it resides.

"What's amazing about this organization is everybody knows somebody," she said. "We have this amazing group of people who come through the program, and they're just so grateful that they want to give back in any way that they can."

As part of the center's expansion that was completed this summer, the organization received $25,000 in in-kind donations from members and the community to fund the task. Additionally, more than 110 volunteers donated their time to the center in 2011, resulting in 9,284 hours of service The Christi Center received. That equated to several full-time positions the center did not have to pay for, Fox said.

To bring those in the community suffering from grief and loss together, the center hosts a variety of weekly classes based on both age and circumstance.

While The Christi Center provides classes for adults, it also offers support groups for those who lost a loved one in a violent crime, as well as a session for survivors of suicide.

"Our hours of operation are technically 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but we have groups almost every night of the week. Someone is here almost all the time," Fox said, adding that new members can walk in at any time during the day to sign up for the center's services.

The Christi Center offers its services free of charge, Fox said, in order to help all individuals seeking support through grief.

"All of our services are free of charge, and that's a fundamental philosophy we have," she said. "We don't want cost to be a barrier. People are dealing with enough things when they come here."

While ongoing recovery and support is a primary theme at The Christi Center, so is remembrance. The center features a heart wall, which was constructed in the center's addition that was completed in June.

"We had a number of people who wanted to memorialize their loved ones, so some people chose to put a loved one's name up on the heart wall," Fox said. "We had an artist donate the mural, and we still have names going up on an ongoing basis."

For group schedules, locations and more information, call 467-2600 or visit www.fortheloveofchristi.org.

The Christi Center Georgetown satellite office — Georgetown Community Resource Center, 805 W. University Ave., 467-2600, www.fortheloveofchristi.org