On December 5, 2006, a precious baby girl named Rachel was seven weeks away from her entry into this world when her family was in a tragic car wreck. Mother and child were flown to Grady Medical Center in Atlanta; however, a couple of hours later Rachel lost her life. The next day she was stillborn. From the lonely depths of grief the family went through in the next hours, days, and weeks, Rachel’s Gift, Inc. was born.

Rachel's Gift has been established to be the first help the parents receive after learning of the death of their infant. The goal of Rachel's Gift is two-fold and each goal is outlined as follows.

 An LPC has drafted a course for nursing professionals, doctors and hospital volunteers to educate them in the grief process of someone who has lost an infant. After research we have learned that these professionals have had little to no training in this area and have, as a result, just avoided these situations. These parents are left alone in a hospital room drowning in their grief and everyone afraid to care for them because they don't know what to do or say. We equip hospital staff with an outline to help them face the grief and in turn help the patient. A presentation is given in person with questions answered and a binder of the presentation left at the workspace for them to reference back to. Every year we will go back and give the presentation in person to refresh those who have taken it before, answer any questions that may have come up in the meantime and to educate new staff members. We are working with one local hospital the first year and then branching out to other area hospitals, growing every year until we are nation-wide. We hope to expand on the course to eventually make it a continued education course in ethics that doctors and nurses can receive credit for their furthering education and renewing of licenses.

The second goal of Rachel's Gift is to provide families with keepsakes of their deceased child. When a child is stillborn or expires shortly after birth there is a narrow window in which to collect keepsakes. With the mental state of the family at the time they cannot think clearly and cannot look ahead to what they will want to have as a remembrance of their child. We provide a package, presented by a volunteer, that includes such things as plaster kits to collect hand and footprints, an album specifically designed for an infant that has expired, a book to guide them in grieving the loss of their child and information on local businesses that provide their services free of charge along with materials on counseling services and support groups should they need them after they leave the hospital. The volunteer from Rachel's Gift is as involved as the family wants them to be in helping them collect these keepsakes and making other arrangements for services available. We have found through our research that most families do not get to utilize the services available because they have no way of knowing about them. Our job is to connect them with whatever services they want or need and the keepsakes that we provide will be life long tangible links to their child and will aid them in their healing process.

In closing, we want no parent to suffer alone during those first agonizing hours after losing a child. We are committed to our mission statement and to these parents in their time of grief.