Lattia
Forever Footprints
What problem does Forever Footprints solve?
When a family loses a baby — whether through miscarriage, stillbirth, SIDS, or infant death — the grief is often met with silence. Friends don't know what to say. Medical professionals are trained to handle the clinical side but rarely have the tools to support the emotional devastation. Parents leave the hospital with empty arms and very few places to turn. The isolation compounds the loss, and many families suffer in silence for years without ever feeling like their child's life was acknowledged.
Who benefits from their work?
Families who have experienced pregnancy loss, stillbirth, SIDS, or infant death — mothers, fathers, siblings, and extended family members. The organization also serves medical professionals in hospitals and clinics who care for these families, equipping them with the training and resources to provide compassionate, informed bereavement support.
What makes their approach unique?
Forever Footprints operates across three distinct missions that work together: direct family support through no-cost grief groups and memory boxes delivered to hospitals; medical education that trains nurses, doctors, and clinical staff to improve how they respond to families during and after loss; and remembrance events like the annual Walk to Remember that bring thousands of families together to honor their babies publicly. Most organizations in this space do one of those things. Forever Footprints does all three, and has been doing it for over two decades.
What does a donation accomplish?
Donations fund the delivery of memory boxes to grieving families in hospitals — tangible keepsake items that become some of the most treasured possessions a parent will ever own. Funds also support free grief support groups, educational books distributed to families and medical professionals, bereavement training for hospital staff, and the annual remembrance walk events that bring thousands of people together. Over the organization's history, more than four million dollars has been raised and put directly toward these programs.
Where do they serve?
Primarily Southern California and Orange County, with an expanding reach through virtual support groups and educational resources that serve families across the country and around the world.
In 2004, founder Kristyn Von Rotz lost her son Joseph Thomas. In the months that followed, she saw firsthand how unprepared the world was for this kind of grief. Hospitals didn't have the resources. Friends didn't have the words. And there were almost no places where a parent could simply say their baby's name out loud and have it matter to someone.
The first Walk to Remember happened in 2005 with about 100 people. For many of them, it was the first time anyone had publicly acknowledged their loss. That single event became the foundation for everything that followed.
Twenty-one years later, Forever Footprints has served more than a million people. We've delivered over 2,100 memory boxes to hospitals and families — small collections of keepsakes that become some of the most valuable things a grieving parent will ever hold. We've trained more than 800 medical professionals in bereavement care, changing how nurses and doctors show up for families in the worst moments of their lives. We've provided free support groups to over a thousand individuals and distributed thousands of educational books.
But the numbers only tell part of the story. What matters most is what happens at the walk every year — when a mother hears her baby's name read aloud and realizes she's standing in a crowd of people who understand. When a father sees his child's footprints on a banner and knows that life counted. When a family that walked in broken walks out knowing they're not alone.
We can't take the pain away. Nobody can. But we can make sure no family carries it by themselves.
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