Judi’s House opens new location in Aurora for families suffering grief

AURORA |  Individual and group therapy rooms. A big lawn. An art room. In-house office space.

Those are some of the amenities of the new Judi’s House location in Aurora, which held its grand opening in August.

The facility was founded by former NFL player Brian Griese, and his wife, Brook Griese, in honor of Brian’s late mother, Judi, who died of breast cancer when he was 12. Judi’s House works with bereaved children and their families in the Denver metro area, along with conducting research and training on grief support.

According to the organization, one in 13 children will experience the death of a parent or sibling before they turn 18, totaling 5.6 million children overall. Parental loss has gained renewed attention during the coronavirus pandemic, which according to a study published this month has robbed 10.5 million children worldwide of a parent or caregiver.

“For those of us in the bereavement field, there is some hope, in that bereavement has come out of the shadows in many ways,” Judi’s House chief clinical officer Micki Burns told reporter Anya Kamenetz in her book The Stolen Year.

“With the mass amount of death that we’ve seen, it has really created this place of empathy and understanding for families who were grieving before, and even more so for families who have had a loss in the past year or so,” Burns said.

The 26,470 square-foot house was specifically designed to meet the nonprofit’s needs, and will be replacing its old location in Denver.

CEO Jessica Maitland Mayo said that Judi’s House had grown out of its old quarters, which were two repurposed Victorian-style houses in the Denver area. The location was also challenging for some families to get to, she said.

The new location will be more centrally located and is close to a number of transportation hubs, including the light rail and I-70, Mayo said. Aurora also has more families with children than Denver, she said, which makes it a good location.

“In our programming we serve children from all types of socioeconomic backgrounds, and it feels like a good metaphor to be in a community that is as diverse as the community that we serve,” she said. 

The land the house was constructed on at East 25th Avenue near Stanley Marketplace was purchased from Aurora Public Schools, and was originally not for sale. However, due to the ongoing partnership Judi’s House had with APS, where it hosts grief groups in district middle schools, the district agreed in the spring of 2020 to sell the property for $1.045 million.

APS Superintendent Rico Munn was present at the ribbon cutting, where he spoke about the importance of the facility being located in Aurora.

“This is a community that’s experienced a lot of trauma and a lot of loss, and is often associated with that,” Munn said. “However this community should also be associated with the healing that is happening here.”

All of the services that Judi’s House provides to families are free. The organization is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In that time it has served over 13,000 children, with those numbers increasing over the years. Mayo said she hopes the new location will put it in good stead to serve children and their families for decades to come.

“We hope that our families feel it is an easy door to walk through,” she said.