Everyone has struggled with grief at some point in their lives. I have too, but I never quite knew how to handle it. It drove me nuts, and if I didn't have my family there to guide me through it, I don't know where I would be.

Grief is not a popular topic of conversation, so it's common that you never learn how to handle it, but I wanted to change that. I knew for my project that I wanted to do something that I could connect with, and something that people don't really talk about. So I used my experiences with grief and my personal losses to design my Gold Award project.

The grief support bags stemmed from the time that I spent with my great uncle in the hospice. It's a time of waiting. It can be long. It can be heartbreaking. It can be exhausting. So I wanted to do something that would make that time a little easier.

The education stemmed from the lack of knowledge I, myself, had about grief. I knew very little about the topic, how to deal with it, and how to help others deal with it, so I saw the project as an opportunity to expand my knowledge and teach others about how to address grief and how to approach and help their friends who are experiencing it as well.

The clay hearts were a way to not only help me educate others, but to further spread the light to those in their time of darkness. They provided a memoriam to those who were experiencing a loss and they were an awesome, easy way for volunteers to continue spreading the light from their own homes.