Today we’re shining a spotlight on Bo’s Heavenly Clubhouse, a child loss support nonprofit that helps grieving families. We’re deeply inspired by their mission, the community they serve, strategies they’ve used for success, and what inspires them to do the work they do.
Bo’s Heavenly Clubhouse – Horicon, Wisconsin
Mission Statement
Bo’s Heavenly Clubhouse is a nonprofit charity organization that is dedicated to helping parents with the death of their child.
We help with Child Loss Support Groups, helping with funeral expenses for children 18 years old and younger and we also send Child Loss Care Packages that are filled with essential items to better help combat the heartache of grief.
Major Goals
2021 is set to be a big year for Bo’s Heavenly Clubhouse. We are searching for a larger facility that will house all of our workshops, retreats, programs and support groups. This will provide Bo’s Heavenly Clubhouse to offer the best support possible while offering much needed grieving services to the community.
Another major goal once we accomplish securing a new facility will be to launch a series of programs and workshops that can directly benefit the surviving children of child loss such as siblings and children that experience the death of their parent(s).
This grief tends to be one of the most forgotten forms of grief that there is. This is because the parents are trying their best to trudge through the grief that they are experiencing themselves from the death of their child.
Oftentimes, their siblings are left to deal with some very complicated adult emotions. We serve parents with children of all ages, and that means that some children are adults when they die and have children of their own that get left behind to muster through this grief alone.
Recent Programmatic Successes
We have a variety of successful programs.
Our three core missions are to help parents and families by providing them with care packages, helping with funeral expenses and hosting Child Loss Support Groups, but we have also launched and successfully published two books.
From Heaven. Through Hell. To Heaven. and Fifty Two Weeks of Journaling Through Child Loss both written by Amanda Hartwig. 100% of the proceeds come right back to Bo’s Heavenly Clubhouse.
These are books that we are able to put in our care packages and get into the hands of the grieving families that need them most. These books are available on Barnes and Noble as well as Amazon.
We have recovered publishing costs for both books and we are now looking forward to the steady profit to help sustain our organization.
Other Successful Programs
–Project Christmas Cheer: This is a program that offers additional gifts to Child Loss applicants that need a little extra support throughout the holiday season. This program is offered completely free to families of child loss.
–Bo Lions: Once a child has passed away, the families often look for something tangible that they can hold that reminds them of their child. We carefully take their child’s clothing and reconstruct it into a stuffed animal lion. Again, this is an entirely free service to our families of child loss.
–Father’s Day Fishing Trip: This is an annual program that happens around father’s day for the dad’s that have suffered the death of their child. All of the father’s meet in Port Washington, Wisconsin to partake in a Chartered Fishing Trip. This is also of zero expense to our child loss families.
–Bo’s 30 Days of Giving: This is a community outreach program that we dedicate to honoring all of the children that have gone before us. Each child has their own business card and on the back we write: “In Loving Memory of _____”
This is a random act of kindness that we do out in the community and we give this random person the card after the random act of kindness is completed. We utilize social media to share this child’s name and allow this to further heal this child’s family members by seeing someone smile in memory of their child.
–Rainbow Baby Blessing Boxes: This program is designed to take care of children that are born after the death of their sibling. Rainbow Babies are a desperate sign of hope and endurance during the darkest time of these parents’ lives. It goes without saying that these children are NOT a replacement of their older sibling, but rather, a gift from them. (This program is completely free to families of child loss).
–Mother’s Day Programs: Covid-19 had other plans for this year, but in past years we have done special programs and events for Mother’s Day to shower mom in some much needed self care activities such as massages, facials, spa days, and what we called a “Mother’s Day Macrame'” A craft workshop that was held around Mother’s Day to gift each mom a tree of life macrame creation that they made in memory of their child.
Recent Funding Successes
We have been in the nonprofit world for almost five years and have successfully achieved grants from our local area Community Foundations, both grants were gifted at $1,000 a piece.
And then we successfully achieved a grant from the Children’s Radiothon of $5,000 in both 2019 and 2020. We appreciate these donations so much and we do extensive advertising for all of these grantmakers throughout our social media platforms.
We also fundraised for a FlexMort CuddleCot Bed to a local hospital. A CuddleCot is a cooling bed that is utilized when a mother delivers her baby stillborn. That mother now has the gift of time because this keeps the baby cooler and allows her to have the essential time needed to create a bond and see the child before having to say goodbye and bury their child.
Noteworthy Strategies
Our foundation has always been able to stand on honesty and share our testimony through and through. In 2015, my husband and I endured the worst pain of our lives. Our ten month old son Bo William Hartwig died of the Adenovirus which is the common cold. There was no immediate help in our area so we had to figure it out on our own.
Thankfully, one year after Bo died, we had the right people to mentor us into creating a foundation to offer help like that of which we needed. I’m so thankful for this testimony because the more that we were transparent with our story, the more families came forward confiding in our organization.
Another Strategy: Make partnerships with other organizations and businesses like yours. I always tell my supporters that there is enough grief to go around. Families need all the support that they can get.
We partner with Angelcare Monitors, Project Linus, Infant Death Center of Wisconsin, local authors, and other businesses and organizations to further help the child loss community. And it has been a saving grace. It never hurts to advertise and give back to other places that believe in your mission.
Insights
The most important thing that I think there is in the nonprofit world is to have a servant’s heart. We run an organization that is open 24/7. Because grief never sleeps. Keeping the right attitude and centering your heart on what matters most is just about the only insight that anyone would need.
Story
Like I previously stated, Bo was 10 months old when he passed away. He fell asleep in his crib and never woke up. We were also 18 weeks pregnant at the time that Bo died. So we had to endure a pregnancy on top of the death of our son.
We started Bo’s Heavenly Clubhouse with a dream to help parents of child loss with support groups because we longed to be around people that have gone through something similar. And then Bo’s took off! Four years later and I’m reminded of God’s Grace.
Child Loss Support Groups During our Child loss support groups we like to have workshops that the parents can readily partake in to help their healing process along. There was a workshop called: “Shattering the Lies” and it was all about the lies that we tell ourselves throughout the child loss journey.
I tasked the parents to write down on a piece of glass with a marker all of the lies that were told from others, that they told themselves and that they told others.
These lies were then shattered. After the shattering was over we were able to then take the glass and repurpose it into a framed photo and made art from it. It was so rewarding to be able to see all of the smiles on everyone’s faces and for them to enjoy the workshops. We do a variety of different workshops that are targeted to further help the grieving and healing process.
Contact Information
Full Name: Amanda Hartwig
President/Founder
Public Contact: Bosheavenlyclubhouse@gmail.com
Phone Number: 262-388-4290
Name: Bo William Hartwig Foundation DBA Bo’s Heavenly Clubhouse
Registered as a Non-Profit Organization since 2016
City and State of Registration & main office: Horicon, Wisconsin
Geographic Scope of Service: It used to be Nationwide, but due to COVID-19 pandemic we only serve Wisconsin as of right now.
Website
Link for making an online donation to Bo’s
We have a wishlist on our website and we are also on AmazonSmile.
Potential Collaboration for a Program
-Volunteer Seamstresses in Wisconsin to help sew burial gowns that we donate to hospitals.
-Volunteers to make and assemble handmade Sympathy Cards to go in our care packages.
(Any size, style and design. It can be blank inside.)
Social Media Handles
Facebook.com/bosheavenlyclubhouse
Instagram.com/bosheavenlyclubhouse
Twitter: @BoClubhouse
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