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Our Mission.
“Helping grieving families find hope and healing in the midst of loss through death.”
Our Vision.
Our vision is to provide a safe place for peer-to-peer grief support for children, teens and adults in the NorthWest Indiana area. We strive to equip everyone with the tools and resources they need to acknowledge, adapt and heal after a death related loss in a healthy way.
We also strive to bring awareness and resources to the community on the impact of grief. We hope to normalize conversations surrounding death related grief to help strengthen and support our community.
our values
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Our Story
Gold Family 2014 (Nolan pictured far right)
A note from Ashley Krygsheld…
On September 19, 2016 the Gold family lost their 19 year old son, Nolan, to suicide after a battle with depression and anxiety. Friends and family have been left to continue on in life without their son, brother, grandson, nephew, and friend leaving a huge hole in their hearts. They will tell you that despite his pain he had a ‘heart of gold’. Nolan was a caring, compassionate, genuine, and supportive friend. His most noble quality, however, was his ability to listen. To care.
Through this unimaginable loss God planted the seed for Golden Hope Ministries. It wasn’t until soon after Nolan’s passing that Lisa (Nolan’s mom) became a very close friend of mine. Fast forward 5 ½ years, friends have become like family. It has been a humbling experience being allowed to walk alongside the Gold family and be present in their grief. As all families walking this road know, it can be incredibly isolating- even when there are strong support systems in place.
A few years ago, I felt God calling me to do more. I began volunteering at the Phoenix Center, located in Valparaiso, IN, as a facilitator for their peer to peer grief support groups for children. It was during these years that God had been preparing my heart and opening my eyes to a great need here in Lake County- a safe place for children, teens and families to share their grief and death experiences while receiving support from other grieving individuals. In 2021, the idea for a family-oriented peer grief support group in Lake County found its roots. As a leap of faith I began sharing my heart for an organization that would serve these grieving families. God started placing people in my path that shared this same passion and experience and we began working together towards this new organization.
I may never have had the chance to meet Nolan, but God continues to use his life and his family’s story to impact my heart. As Nolan’s family and friends have shared, his greatest qualities were the ability to support, to listen, and to care. It is my prayer that we may continue to honor Nolan’s life and the Gold family as we serve grieving families here in NWI by showing God’s love and supporting, caring and listening to one another in our grief journeys.
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Ashley Krygsheld
Program Director
Certified Grief Counselor
Certified Child & Adolescent Grief Counselor