For the fifth year, FRIENDS WAY has partnered with Christmas Décor by Seascape to brighten the holidays for a grieving family. The Donnelly family of Coventry lost father and fiancé Bradley Cooke in 2015 to a heart attack eight years ago. SeaScape generously donated the decorations, and put them up for the family to help ease their grief this holiday season.
FRIENDS WAY was featured on WPRI’s Community Focus on December 23. Program director Ryan Loiselle, LICSW, discussed grief during the holidays and the many services that FRIENDS WAY offers. Watch the video below, courtesy of WPRI.com.
Dear Friends and Supporters,
It is with great disappointment that we must tell you that FRIENDS WAY has made the difficult decision to cancel our September 17, 2021 Diamonds in the Sky gala. The rise in transmission rates of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 presents a significant health and safety risk to individuals in large gatherings given its expected peak around the time of our Gala. Infection control experts in our parent company, Brown University Health, and FRIENDS WAY’s Board of Directors have agreed that it would be most prudent to not host such an event at this time.
We have been very excited about our plans for this year’s event and were looking forward to joining together to celebrate FRIENDS WAY. As many of you know, the Gala is our biggest fundraiser of the year, bringing in almost half of our operating revenue. We have many generous sponsors supporting the Gala and want to recognize their contributions to making the event successful. A full list of our supporters to date can be found below, and we hope you will join us in thanking these important contributors to the health of our community. In the meantime your support is more valuable than ever, as children and families experience unprecedented loss.
Unfortunately, this is the second Gala that we have had to cancel, and the second time we have tried to honor Dan Wall, former President and CEO of Bradley Hospital with the Michael E. Wiggins Leadership Award. Dan has been a tireless advocate for FRIENDS WAY when Gateway Healthcare and its affiliates joined Brown University Health. His generosity in sharing Bradley’s resources and promoting the important work that FRIENDS WAY does has helped us sustain and grow the organization. Thank you, Dan.
Through the hard work of our Gala Committee and Board of Directors, we have been gathering many great items for our auction to help bring in important revenue. Our plans were to start the auction online, with the final bids culminating at the Gala. We will move forward with the online auction, with items posting through the Greater Giving platform. Final bids will be due Friday night, September 17 at 8:00 pm.
We hope that you will enjoy our auction items and find something to pique your interest (and competitive spirit)! You’ll be able to bid as frequently as you like and see who you are bidding against. Of course, direct donations will also be accepted online through the auction platform. You’ll be hearing from us again soon with auction details, and the link will be posted here as soon as it is available.
Hopefully, we will be able to come together soon to share FRIENDS WAY’s newest endeavors and hear from our families about what the organization has meant to them to promote their healing. Thank you for your ongoing support.
Sincerely,
Susan Stevenson, Executive Director, FRIENDS WAY
Melinda Gaudreau, Chair, Board of Directors
Carolyn Kyle, Chair, Gala Committee
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, all of our groups are currently being held virtually via Zoom. Contact us for more information by emailing Ryan Loiselle at r.loiselle@friendsway.org.
FRIENDS WAY offers open-ended groups for children ages 3 to 18 and their families following the death of a significant person in their lives. There is no fee charged for participation in our programs. All sessions are facilitated by a qualified clinician and professionally trained volunteers.
FRIENDS WAY volunteer Claire Haines, from New London, CT, was awarded a Patriots Difference Maker of the Week Award, which entailed a $5,000 grant to the FRIENDS WAY.
Read MoreCoping can be the hardest around the holidays and in two TV segments, we discuss how we overcome grief during this time.
Read MoreOur new program helps children and their families who have been affected by opioid addiction.
Read MoreFRIENDS WAY is the fortunate recipient of two grants from corporations that value the bereavement support we provide to the community.
Read MoreFRIENDS WAY facilitates biweekly sessions in which children teens and young adults share their feelings and reactions to grief in an honest and open way.
Read MoreThe 2019 Gala, which celebrated our 20th anniversary, raised $125,325 to benefit Southern New England’s leading bereavement program for children.
Read MoreNBC10 Health Check reporter Barbara Morse-Silva interviewed program director Ryan Loiselle.
Read MoreMore than $60,000 was raised for Bradley Hospital and FRIENDS WAY through the annual Play4Kids Golf Tournament in 2018.
Read MoreOur donors allow us to provide life-changing bereavement services at no-cost to participants. Any donation, big or small, can make a huge difference.
FRIENDS WAY is a division of Gateway Healthcare, a Brown University Health partner. With multiple locations throughout Rhode Island, Gateway is the largest provider of behavioral health care services in the state and serves more than 15,000 clients annually.
Learn more about our partnership »©2025 FRIENDS WAY
