NORTHAMPTON — Just as spring settles in, the Syrup Stampede 5K race and 2K fun run or walk will return on Sunday, April 6, and the pancake breakfast and race fundraiser will once again help the work of Empty Arms Bereavement Support.
Empty Arms Bereavement Support serves individuals and families in Massachusetts and nationwide whose babies have died through miscarriage, stillbirth, early infant death or termination for medical reasons. This will be the sixth Syrup Stampede, which is a 5K run or walk all in support of Empty Arms Bereavement since 2017, with two years missed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The course will be at Look Memorial Park and will be timed. The race begins at 10 a.m. and race day bib pick-up begins at 9 a.m. Early bib pick-up at Empty Arms Bereavement Support office will be available on Friday, April 4, from 4-6 p.m. and on Saturday, April 5, from 2-4 p.m.
Runners and walkers can register as teams or individuals, and have the option to fundraise as a team. Registration is $35 until April 4 with the price rising to $40 the weekend of the race. Youth registration is $15 and $18 the weekend of for children age 4-12, and $20 and $25 weekend of for kids age 13-17.
The group rate for two adults and up to six youth is $100 if pre-registered and becomes $125 on April 4. Interested attendees can also purchase a ticket for the pancake breakfast only for $12 if not participating in the race.
Prizes will be awarded for top youth and age 18+ male, female, non-binary runners, as well as the top fundraising individual. Pancakes will be available starting at 10 a.m.
To sign up for the fundraiser, visit syrupstampede.com.
Empty Arms founder and Executive Director Carol McMurrich told Reminder Publishing the event strives to be a good time as the spring season is underway. She added that the pancake breakfast alongside the races make for a fun atmosphere in support of the often-heavy work of Empty Arms.
McMurrich explained that after experiencing the loss of her own baby over 15 years ago, she quickly realized the lack of support options for mothers like her experiencing a tragedy.
“I experienced my first baby die at birth and to be perfectly honest, that was not something I even knew really could happen, that you could have a healthy baby and a healthy mom and the baby could still die,” said McMurrich. “The more I learned about it after it happened to me, the more that I realized there are really all kinds of different ways that people are losing pregnancies and babies, and we have no social support structure to hold that experience, despite the fact that it is so common.”
Seeing the landscape of support options for dealing with this experience, McMurrich said Empty Arms was eventually born from just one support group in Northampton.
“I wanted to figure out a way to bring people together because I was sort of struck by this isolation, and sort of the senselessness of this isolation. Like I know these people are out there but have no way of finding them. I needed to find other people who have been through this to find a context for what I’m experiencing,” said McMurrich.
With a background in social work, she also pointed out the benefits of people connecting with and being in the company of people who have shared the same experiences, whether it be groups of people going through cancer treatments or dealing with substance abuse.
As the support group grew, Empty Arms eventually started programs in small community hospitals where they would have volunteers go in to be with families at the time of their baby’s death as a peer mentor to support and help families make decisions through the difficult process that follows.
“You can imagine a person like myself goes into the hospital with a little bag packed expecting to just come home with a healthy baby and instead the baby unexpectedly dies and then a social worker walks in and asks, ‘do you want to bury or cremate your baby and what funeral home do you want to use?’ And you’re like 27-years-old and you’re just like I don’t know, I’ve never thought about this before,” McMurrich said. “It’s out of left field, you’re being asked to make these decisions that have never crossed your mind before. So that peer support is really helpful.”
She added that today, Empty Arms programming and support is available in all hospitals in the Connecticut River Valley as well as various support groups across the state. A big goal of Empty Arms is being able to offer support for as many families as they can who go through this experience so they can understand the scope of options and ways of handling the loss.
“It’s where I say [to a family], ‘I know some people who have done such and such and I know other people who have done it a totally different way. For me, it felt comfortable to do this and I hope this will give you some ideas to that will help you find what’s comfortable for you,” McMurrich said. “We want companions to be able to provide families with a menu and it’s a menu of options that feel safe because other people have done them before. You can imagine when something like this happens that’s so unexpected, you can feel like you’re the first person in the world that this is happening to and so it’s hard to make these decisions.”
Last year, Empty Arms served 64 families at the bed side and while the number may not jump out, McMurrich pointed out it’s still 64 families who would be without the resource without their work. She added it’s not just 64 mothers either as support extends to families and those around grieving with the loss.
They now have 12 different monthly support groups with each focused on a different aspect of pregnancy loss. Support for early pregnancy loss, termination for medical reasons, pregnancy after loss groups, a men’s group for fathers, all of these support groups and more are offered monthly and virtually available to anyone in the state.
“It’s actually made our groups much more robust for our valley residents to have people coming from other places because it just meant there was a greater diversity of stories and experiences in each group,” McMurrich added.
McMurrich said while the work can be challenging, the growth families make through support makes it all worth it to be the option for them after experiencing this type of loss.
“I meet everybody when they’re at the proverbial bottom of their life and it’s hard to witness such extreme pain, but the other side of it that’s harder to envision is that because you meet people at the bottom — everything we offer families is something that just would not be available for them if we were not here. So it’s not like we’re doing a better job than the next guy, there is no next guy, this is it. This is the place where you can get support,” McMurrich said. “They’re rebuilding their family. Most of our families do go on to have more children after this loss. We now have families that come — for example — to the Syrup Stampede, and we have teenagers who are the babies of the first Empty Ars families participating in the race. That’s beautiful, that’s not depressing, that’s amazing.”
Empty Arms operates through the generous support of individual donors, as well as grants from The Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, The Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, Baystate Health, The Beveridge Family Foundation, The Consigli Foundation and the city of Northampton.
For more information on the work of Empty Arms or the Syrup Stampede, visit emptyarmsbereaveement.org.
