Ferry Beach Retreat & Conference Center – Saco, ME
Experience a meaningful week with others that understand your loss. Open yourself and your family up to healing grief in new ways.
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At Rett’s Roost, we show people ways to experience moments of joy & gratitude amidst their grief. While we cannot hope to relieve your grief in just a few days, our goal is to change your course toward healing even if you cannot yet see how that might be possible. We hope you leave feeling less alone in this lonely world of child loss, with tools in your back pocket and friends to call on for when you enter those dark spaces of grief.
The presenting sponsor of this retreat is One Mission, an organization that supports families of children with cancer. Rett’s Roost will host up to 8 families at Ferry Beach Retreat & Conference Center from Sunday through Thursday, providing nearly four full days of therapeutic support and connecting with others. There will be an option to stay through Friday on your own.
Prior to the retreat, parents will meet on zoom for 3-4 story-sharing, grief-work sessions in April and May. This allows people to feel more comfortable coming together in-person in the summer already having met online.
Besides plenty of time to relax, at the retreat we offer activities that allow you to share with others and heal within. The agenda will include grief support, yoga, art, and music for both parents and children. Also, get a massage, energy treatment, meet with a medium, and have professional beach family portraits taken.
At Ferry Beach Retreat Center, each family will have their own dormitory style bedroom(s). Bathrooms are shared. The house we will stay in together is a 2-minute walk to the sandy shore and lapping waves of the Atlantic. A handicap-accessible room is available–request early. Ferry Beach staff will be providing delicious, healthy meals & snacks in their dining room (across the way from the lodging house).
Does my family qualify? For this retreat, we will accept up to 8 families that have lost a child to cancer. There is no restriction on the amount of time since your child’s death. You must reside within the six New England states, or NY or NJ. Our retreats are best suited for children between the ages of 4-15, however, we do welcome families with older and younger children. Unfortunately, we cannot accept parents that lost their only child or only have surviving children older than 18 at this retreat (please see our parent only retreat in December). Limited travel scholarships are available by request.
DEI: Rett’s Roost retreats are nondenominational. We act, and ask our participants to act, without discriminating against any person or organization because of their race, age, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or religious belief.
COVID-19: Currently we are requiring all parents and other adults (volunteers, therapists) participating in this retreat to be vaccinated for COVID (at least 2 shots). We will be asking each attendee over 3 years old to take a rapid antigen test on arrival and a PCR test before the event if there has been a potential exposure.
Check out pictures from last year’s retreat at Ferry Beach: 2022 Photos
General info about our retreats
Get in touch for more details or sign up to volunteer for this retreat!