A Parent’s Connection To Scripps
When Wyomi Yonzon Yockey and her young, vibrant family moved to San Diego from Chicago in 2001, they had no established network of friends. An acquaintance recommended The Parent Connection, a nonprofit parenting support network sponsored by Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla.
Wyomi quickly started a playgroup for neighborhood children and found close friends and kindred spirits in the community. Through the years she became more deeply involved in the group’s work, joining The Parent Connection board. During that period, she personally headed up fundraising for a financial assistance program initially established to help families devastated by the 2003 San Diego wildfires.
At the time of her board service, Wyomi had no idea that her family would also find itself in need of support.
“In 2006,” Wyomi remembers, “Our daughter, Madison, drowned. The friends we’d made through Parent Connection overwhelmed us with kindness and grace. We received letters from people in the group we’d never met, telling us they were praying for us. Parent Connection friends helped us through the worst of those days, bringing us meals, arranging for cleaning, filling the house with flowers.”
She takes a deep breath. “You don’t realize until you’re in the middle of it how many expenses you face when you lose a child. In an already devastating time, there is also an immediate crush of financial demands.”
Recognizing the rare but real need to help families like the Yonzon-Yockeys, The Parent Connection board established Madison’s Fund, which provides critical financial support to parents suffering the greatest loss of all.
“Luckily, we haven’t had to distribute money from Madison’s Fund recently, but 2011 marks the fund’s fifth anniversary, and sadly, it has been used. Knowing that Madison’s Fund is there for other families is a great comfort to me.”
As the family continues to grow, Wyomi’s connection to Scripps remains strong. Her twin boys, now 20 months old, were born at Scripps La Jolla in 2009. As she found herself rocking them late one night in the neonatal ICU, “It dawned on me,” she says, “that I was sitting in a chair The Parent Connection had donated to the NICU during my time on the board. That was a true ‘Circle of Life’ moment for me. It’s been such an important part of our lives, through good times and tough times, too. I know I’ll be a lifetime member of this organization.”