Grieving students remember loved ones

Walking along the bricks of The Green to Memorial Hall, there are flickers of red within the stairwells. There sit dozens of roses, illuminating each level of the stairs.

On Thursday, the registered student organization Students of Ailing Mothers and Fathers held a rose memorial service in observance of National College Student Grief Awareness Week.

"It's a way to bring awareness to other students that this is going on, but lets students affected by loss know there is support out there," said Danielle Cherry, president of the RSO.   

Students were invited to take one of 75 roses, write the name of a person they or another had lost and attach it to the rose in memory of that person.

The group is donating the roses to the Helen Graham Cancer Center and Christiana Hospital.

AMF was started in the fall by Cherry and Carlene Meaney, both juniors, who have lost a parent and wanted to help other students who were also grieving from the loss of a loved one.


The group focuses on both support and service with bi-monthly support groups and partnerships with Relay for Life and other RSOs like Lori's Hands, which helps families dealing with cancer.

During the event, approximately 15 students came to lay down a rose.

Junior Kelsey Mason came because she had heard about the event as a member of Lori's Hands.

"I think it's really nice," Mason said. "It kind of spreads awareness about National College Student Grief Awareness Week, and it's nice to be able to put somebody on a rose. It's cool they're donating them."

Cherry said 25 percent of students in college having grieved in the past two years of their lives.

"This is so people realize how many college students and friends have been affected by the loss of a loved one and grief," Meaney said.

The rose ceremony resonated strongly with both Cherry and Meaney. Cherry attended a rose service for her father, and Meaney's mother loved gardening. The idea for the event came from both of their personal experiences and from ideas of other chapters of the National College Student Grief.

The national group was started five years ago, but is now approximately 70 chapters strong.

"We recognize that taking the first step is really hard," Meaney said. "Know you're going to be received by a group of people, and you can get something positive out of something very negative."