We're Looking for Volunteers and Community Partners

Building something meaningful takes a community — and we're actively looking for ours.

Here are three ways you can get involved with Suicide Loss Memorial Foundation right now, even before our programs officially launch:

Help us create a Colorado license plate. We are working to get a special group license plate created here in Colorado in honor of those lost to suicide and to raise money for our mission. This process requires paperwork support and signature gathering, and we need volunteers to help make it happen. If you're detail-oriented and passionate about this cause, we'd love your help. Call us at 970-820-0211 or email contact@suicidelossmemorialfoundation.org.

Help us find a home for our community garden. We are looking for a location in the Greeley area where we can establish a healing-centered community garden — a space where people affected by grief and mental health challenges can reconnect with nature, with food, and with each other. If you have land, connections, or ideas, please reach out.

Connect us with youth in your community. If you are a teacher, school counselor, coach, youth pastor, or parent who works with young people in our area, we want to build relationships now — before programs launch — so that when we're ready, we can reach the kids who need it most.

No experience necessary. Just a willingness to show up and help build something good.

We are grateful for every person who believes in what we're doing. Thank you for being here.

Suicide Loss Memorial Foundation Is Officially Open

We are proud to announce that Suicide Loss Memorial Foundation is officially registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, serving the Greeley, Colorado community, Northern Colorado, and hopefully one day all of Colorado.

This has been a labor of love — built from personal loss, a deep belief in the power of human connection, and a commitment to making sure fewer people have to navigate grief and mental health struggles alone.

Our board is in place and ready to work. Nicole Arellano-Forget serves as Founder and President, bringing over ten years of lived experience with suicide loss and a passion for creating healing spaces and connection. Alexander Arellano serves as Vice President, contributing five years of operations management experience and his own personal journey with mental health. Celeste Cardenas serves as Treasurer, bringing over 17 years of financial services and nonprofit development experience, including directing more than $300,000 in charitable funds.

We are currently in the planning and fundraising phase for all three of our core programs — Memorials that Heal, our Community Garden, and our Youth Social Engagement Program. Each one is designed to create real, tangible spaces and experiences where people can find connection, community, and healing.

If our mission speaks to you, we invite you to join us — through your time, your voice, or your support.

All donations are tax-deductible. Every dollar helps us build something that lasts.

How a Park Bench Changed Everything

When my father passed away in August of 2014, I found myself searching for somewhere to go. Not just emotionally — physically. A place I could visit, sit quietly, and feel close to him. Because he was cremated and had no burial site, that place didn't exist. And that absence was its own kind of grief.

My father loved taking long walks in the park near his home. So I started a fundraiser to place a memorial bench there — somewhere he had felt peace in his life, and somewhere I could go to find a little of my own. When the bench was finally placed, something shifted. It became more than a tribute. It became a sanctuary. A place for me to breathe, to talk to him, to feel less alone.

That bench taught me something I've carried ever since: healing doesn't always happen in a therapist's office or a support group. Sometimes it happens in a quiet park, on a bench under a tree, where you can just sit and remember someone you loved.

That's why I started Suicide Loss Memorial Foundation. Because I believe everyone who has lost someone to suicide deserves a place like that. And because I believe young people growing up dealing with loss or their own mental health struggles deserve more connection, more support, and more chances to feel like they have a purpose in life.

We're just getting started. But we've already proven that something as simple as a bench can change everything.