Funeral Service Foundation Launches COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund
Brookfield, Wis. – The Funeral Service Foundation today announces the launch of its COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund, which will help funeral service professionals and organizations working throughout the country who are disproportionately impacted by the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Gifts at every level can be made at FuneralServiceFoundation.org.
The COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund has two pillars of support: emergency assistance and grief support. Designed to be flexible, the fund will provide grants for immediate needs within funeral service including emergency response to significant loss of life; grants to organizations providing services and resources to families with unresolved and complicated grief due to loss during this crisis; and grants for other important needs as funeral service continues to serve families during this rapidly evolving crisis.
“The Foundation’s Board of Trustees launched this fund with the understanding that funeral service is already responding to the crisis in a big way, and will need tremendous support to continue to do so effectively,” said Foundation Chair Anthony Guerra of Guerra & Gutierrez Mortuaries in Los Angeles. “We all may feel a little helpless as we navigate our way forward in the wake of this pandemic; a donation to this fund goes directly to help funeral service and will make a true difference the lives of those we are called to serve. It feels great to be able to do something concrete to lift up our profession.”
“Matthews is proud to do anything we can to support the funeral service profession during this unprecedented time,” said Steve Gackenbach, Group President, Memorialization at Matthews International and a Foundation Trustee. “Our donation helps ensure that funeral service professionals will have the resources and support they need to assist families who can’t say goodbye in ways they wish, which may result in unresolved and complicated grief.”
The Foundation is counting on the funeral service community to respond generously and help at this unprecedented time of need and uncertainty. One-time or monthly gifts to the Funeral Service Foundation’s COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund can be made online at FuneralServiceFoundation.org. Those interested in supporting may also send checks, made payable to the Funeral Service Foundation to the FSF COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund, 13625 Bishop’s Drive, Brookfield, WI 53005, or call 1-877-402-5900 to make a gift by phone.
About the Funeral Service Foundation – FuneralServiceFoundation.org
Since 1945, the Funeral Service Foundation has served as the profession’s philanthropic voice. As the charitable arm of the National Funeral Directors Association since 1997, the Foundation receives operational support from NFDA and donors across the profession to help advance its mission to support funeral service in building meaningful relationships with the families and the communities it serves.
