We recently connected with Christina O’Mara and have shared our conversation below.
Christina, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
In 2018 our daughter passed away at birth. Our lives changed tremendously. We wanted to celebrate our daughter’s short but impacting life by creating an exciting event and help other families like ours who have suffered from infancy and pregnancy loss. Our daughter’s name is Ariella and her nursery was decorated in little mermaid theme. We created The Mermaid Run as a fun run to celebrate her life. We donated those proceeds to another non-profit charity organization raising thousands of dollars to help families who have suffered from infancy and pregnancy loss.
Our goal was to always create a non-profit charity organization and so the Sea of Hope Foundation, Inc was created. With our non-profit we are able to help families financially and support bereaved siblings with a “Wave of Promise ” scholarship program.
Everything we do is in our daughter’s honor and to help our community.
“When a baby is born it is a mother’s instinct to protect their baby. When a baby passes it is a mother’s instinct to protect their memory. ”
Christina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
On April 27th 2018, Our little Ariella was born premature and survived for 16 minutes, she was a true fighter. Prior to that day we had been preparing for her arrival, we were so excited to have a little girl in our lives as we have all boys. She was going to be the princess, the diva, our little mermaid princess. What was to have been a fairytale turned into our worst nightmare. It took a lot out of myself and my husband to try and function in the ever moving world around us. We found the strength with the pregnancy and Infancy loss community.
We wanted to take our tragedy and turn it into something positive. Something that we could do to help other families like ours who have suffered from infancy and pregnancy loss.
What started with a run in the middle of a pandemic to having runners from all over the world, as far as Australia to Hawaii, join in and celebrate the life of our Daughter. We are celebrating our 5th year anniversary of The Mermaid Run. What started out with only 250 runners has now grown to over 550 runners from across the globe. Our in person race involves real live professional Mermaids and so much more. We’ve raised thousands of dollars to support a previously selected non-profit charity organization to help families like ours.
Our second goal was to create a non-profit charity organization that supports families who have suffered from infancy and pregnancy loss and so we created the Sea of Hope Foundation, Inc. Our mission is to help families who have suffered from infancy and pregnancy loss by providing financial assistance, grief gatherings and emotional support as well as a bereaved siblings scholarship.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Staying true to who we are. Making sure our community knew our story. Creating bonds and friendships with those businesses and people who have helped us start our journey. Helping other small businesses within our community. Staying positive and taking every “no” in stride until the next “yes, we’d love to help”
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Word of mouth, sharing our story.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.themermaidrun.com
- Instagram: Seaofhopefoundation
- Facebook: Sea of Hope Foundation, Inc
- Twitter: Seaofhopefnd
- Other: Www.seaofhopefoundation.org