After looking for a permanent home to continue their mission of grief support, Valerie's House-Pensacola has finally found a new location to settle in.

The new location, located at 904 East Gadsden Street, was made possible by the Chadbourne Foundation and will finally allow Valerie House to have their own permanent space to grow and offer programming to as many different groups of children as possible. The Chadbourne Foundation, under the leadership of Caroline and Brian DeMaria, donated $500,000 for the purchase of the home.

“We are just incredibly grateful and so excited to get into the space and transform it and make it our own so that it makes just that warm, inviting and fun environment,” said Valerie’s House-Pensacola founder Crista Brandt.

Brandt, who lost her mother when she was 11 years old, did not know how to communicate her grief since she did not know anyone else who was also going through a similar experience. That missing link of having others to speak with is why she now dedicates herself to connecting children with other children who are grieving just like she once was.

The original Valerie's House was founded in Fort Myers in January 2016 by Angela Melvin, whose mother Valerie, died in a car accident in 1987.

The houses provide a peer to peer support model that helps children share, connect and build bonds with other kids their age that are dealing with similar experiences. This provides opportunities for children to become aware of their feelings and find ways to manage them by not feeling alone in their journey.

In Florida, one in 12 children will experience the death of a sibling or parent by age 18, according to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model. One in 11 children in Escambia and one in 14 in Santa Rosa county will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the age of 18.

Children who have lost a parent, without the support of others and the tools to know how to grieve, often turn to risk-taking and self-harming behaviors, drugs, criminal activity and other disorders to cope with grief, according to Valerie's House leadership.

This means there are close to 9,000 children in the area who are grieving.

Valerie's House has expanded into three additional locations beyond Fort Myers − Naples, Port Charlotte and Pensacola − and serve over 3,000 children and families combined.

The Pensacola branch was opened in 2021 and because it did not have a brick and mortar location was operating out of the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Florida building at 1320 Creighton Road for its meetings.

The program started off with about 20 children and now has grown to more than 100 children and caregivers in just a year.

Valerie House currently has two groups who attend twice-a-month peer support groups.

The new house is expected to serve more families, growing the program from two groups to eight groups. It will allow for the ability to tailor groups to specific needs such as the loss of a child, violent/traumatic death and grandparents raising children. Children and families who participate in the group sessions will also have the ability to call or visit Valerie’s House at any time during the day for additional support.

For Brandt, their success depends on the community and the support of volunteers as all of their group nights are run by trained volunteers. These include trained therapists, counselors, teachers, students from University of West Florida and others.

As a fully funded 501 c3 nonprofit, every dollar matters so donations and grants are vital to running their programs. If people cannot volunteer, there are other opportunities to help out such as sponsoring a meal for the families, buying furniture or art supplies for activities, or even hanging out and talking with the families.

“What they're bringing to the community is just going to change the lives of so many children. It'll change the trajectory of their lives, because the kids will learn early on ways to cope with the many emotions of grief that they're feeling and dealing with and help prevent them from adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms,” Brandt said. “And it really protects and supports the entire community. And it's just a beautiful gift that they're giving to me, to Valerie's House-Pensacola, to Valerie's House's entire organization and to the community of Pensacola.”