About Us

Providing Grief Support After the Death of a Child

The Compassionate Friends (TCF) is the nation’s largest self-help bereavement organization for families that have suffered the tragic loss of a child. TCF has more than 650 chapters in the United States, with sister organizations in at least 30 countries around the globe.

TCF Green Bay is a local chapter, founded in 2000.

The Compassionate Friends Credo

We need not walk alone.
We are The Compassionate Friends.
We reach out to each other with love, with understanding, and with hope.
The children we mourn have died at all ages and from many different causes, but our love for them unites us.
Your pain becomes my pain, just as your hope becomes my hope.
We come together from all walks of life, from many different circumstances.
We are a unique family because we represent many races, creeds, and relationships.
We are young, and we are old.
Some of us are far along in our grief, but others still feel a grief so fresh and so intensely painful that they feel helpless and see no hope.
Some of us have found our faith to be a source of strength, while some of us are struggling to find answers.
Some of us are angry, filled with guilt or in deep depression, while others radiate an inner peace.
But whatever pain we bring to this gathering of The Compassionate Friends, it is pain we will share, just as we share with each other our love for the children who have died.
We are all seeking and struggling to build a future for ourselves, but we are committed to building a future together.
We reach out to each other in love to share the pain as well as the joy, share the anger as well as the peace, share the faith as well as the doubts, and help each other to grieve as well as to grow.
We Need Not Walk Alone.
We Are The Compassionate Friends.

Steering Committee:

Mickey Schmeisser: Chapter Leader, Newsletter Editor
Steve Schmeisser: Treasurer, Newsletter
Peg LeRoy: Programming
Sue Van Straten: Remembering our Children
Sue DeLong: Remembering Our Children
Carol Wautlet: Resource Coordinator