From 1999-2016 Dorene Sherman spent working with the depression and bipolar support alliance (DBSA) as an executive director, president, support group leader, program developer.

She founded the final farewell project after working at a cemetery in Toledo and seeing families come in wanting to bury their loved one but didn’t have enough money to do so. She learned that cities around the country have indigent programs to help people but they have strict guidelines and it is incredibly difficult to  qualify. Dorene wanted to do something to ensure that no matter who you were you could bury your loved one. That’s how final farewell started. It started with an idea here in Toledo and then she moved to Akron and started it there.

Last fall Dorene made the decision to come home to Toledo and expand on what she was doing in NE Ohio. She was proud of her work with The Final Farewell Project but her hometown needed help too. She felt that it was her time to go home and help the people where she grew up and raised her son.

Compassionate Grace was inspired through the experience that her she and her son Jared had with her mother and grandmother. They helped to raise him and we lived with them. They were both sick with cancer at the same time and the last several years of their lives were difficult. Without the support they received from her son’s school, friends and family they would not have been able to make it through the difficult time. Compassionate Grace is about supporting, honoring and celebrating families.

Besides the support services we also offer funeral and burial assistance when needed.

UPDATE:

As of March 1st, The Final Farewell Project of Summit County and Compassionate Grace of Northern Ohio will merge together as one organization providing combined service to the communities of both regions. This merger will increase impact and community benefit to provide essential and critical support to families in some of their most vulnerable times. Headquarters for this new merger are located in Akron, OH.