When a loved one passes away, those left behind often face a litany of challenges and legal issues to deal with, all while also managing their own grief and emotions.
That’s where the Survivor’s Advocacy Group steps in. The nonprofit helps with carrying out wills, making funeral arrangements, dealing with creditors and debt collectors, and more, all free of charge.
Founded by Angie Creel, of Adna, and Kim Bradeen, of Tenino, the Survivor’s Advocacy Group is a nonprofit they started after meeting in a support group organized by Evergreen Christian Community church five years ago.
“Our pastor and his wife invited three couples over for dinner who did not know each other, and we still know each other to this day,” Creel said.
Both Creel and Bradeen had recently gone through the loss of their fathers-in-law.
“At that time, my mother lost her husband and I was helping her with all of the notifications, calling the banks and credit card companies, drafting letters and sending the death certificate,” Creel said. “My background has been operations and processes, so my brain was going, ‘Oh, if everybody has to go through this, they have to make those phone calls and draft these letters, you can make a template.’ That’s kind of where the seed was planted.”
She shared the idea with Bradeen, who had to deal with death in her family long before her father-in-law passed away.
“My story actually started 32 years ago when I lost my first husband,” Bradeen said.
Her first husband, who had just turned 30 at the time, was killed in a workplace accident in Tacoma. His death left Bradeen behind with two children, a 2-year-old and a 7-month-old.
“The trauma that happens to anybody in that situation is so great. Luckily for me, we were in Tacoma at the time and I had my whole family down here in the Adna area, and they were by my side within an hour,” Bradeen said.
During that time, her family helped her with the legal notifications and dealing with lawyers so Bradeen could mourn. So when Creel approached her with the idea of the Survivor’s Advocacy Group, Bradeen was instantly on board.
“It gives us the opportunity to love on people just like my family loved on me,” Bradeen said.
Whenever someone suffers the loss of a loved one, the Survivor’s Advocacy Group steps in to ensure the survivors’ interests are protected and allow them time to grieve. Creel said the group’s three goals are to advocate, educate and support.
They provide education along with access to various community and government agencies and help survivors navigate the services they need to carry out someone’s final wishes.
Part of the education they do to help those still living in preparing for the end of their lives to ensure they have everything lined up the way they want it.
“We do what we can to make people aware of how you can pre-plan, what happens when you die, you know, especially if somebody dies and there’s no will,” Creel said. “That’s going to get dicey with family members, because if somebody hasn’t laid out what their wishes are, it’s just a recipe for disaster.”
Whether someone has already been in hospice care or just received a terminal diagnosis, Creel and Bradeen are working on setting up seminars for anyone interested in learning more about pre-planning and setting up their will.
Additionally, both Creel and Bradeen are certified grief coaches, and are there to also provide emotional support whenever someone might need it, along with being family therapists.
“Death brings out dysfunction, and if there is dysfunction in a family, it’s going to get magnified when somebody dies … We’ve seen that many times and even experienced it personally,” Creel said.
“It’s so sad to see, when they need to be focused on the loss of a loved one, let’s mourn and grieve that, and not think, ‘Oh I just came into a whole bunch of money,’” Bradeen added.
To help dispel loneliness for those they council, they also organize local events to help foster community connections between people, such as the recent quilting event held in partnership with Love Covers at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis to make quilts for veterans on palliative care.
Veterans Memorial Museum Executive Director Chip Duncan has offered an event space at no charge Creel added.
Bradeen said they are organizing another quilting event for veterans on palliative care in partnership with Love Covers on Thursday, May 16, at the Veterans Memorial Museum — located at 100 SW Veterans Way in Chehalis — from 1 to 5 p.m.
The Survivor’s Advocacy Group does have one issue — they have no permanent office space to call their own yet.
“The number one thing we’re wanting to do is get office space, having a place where we can meet with our families and our survivors. We’re currently using the Chehalis Coworks (conference room), but it’s not really conducive to privacy,” Creel said.
The nonprofit, along with partnering with other nonprofits such as Love Covers and the Northwest Justice Project, also works with the local eCare Mortuary.
In working with the mortuary, they recently had the chance to help someone who passed away find their final resting place.
“The lady had passed but her family was in Massachusetts and had nobody here to take care of anything for her, so Angie and I stepped in,” Bradeen said.
They were assisted by eCare co-founder Diane Achord.
They discovered the woman’s husband was a retired U.S. Navy veteran whose remains are now interred at the Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent. The woman’s niece in Massachusetts paid for the cremation, but as she was not close with her aunt, did not want to fly across the country to get her ashes.
“Diane still had the cremains and it would cost $300 to ship her cremains to Massachusetts,” Creel said. “I recalled this woman’s husband had retired from the Navy, and we thought, ‘If we find his cremains, can we get them interred together at Tahoma?’”
After doing some research, they found her husband and were able to get her cremains interred along with his in February.
To get in contact with the Survivors Advocacy Group about their services or to donate, visit https://www.survivorsadvocacygroup.org/ or call 360-269-5677.
Those with potential leads on office space can contact Bradeen and Creel at angella.creel@outlook.com and kim.bradeen@outlook.com.
Founded by Patti Ledesma of South Thurston County, Love Covers focuses on making quilts for veterans on palliative care while also connecting people from diverse backgrounds by sharing the joy of the creative process through the art of sewing.
To learn more about Love Covers, visit https://www.lovecoverswa.org/. Look for a feature on Love Covers in an upcoming edition of The Chronicle.
eCare Mortuary is a local funeral planning agency focused on affordability, accessibility and providing survivors the opportunity to be independent during the funeral planning process. For more information, read The Chronicle’s previous story on eCare at https://bit.ly/48sVHn1.
