Walk With A Widow
Empower. Educate. Prepare.
“How do I continue on? Who understands what I’m going through? How can I help someone who has lost a spouse?”
If you have lost a spouse or know of someone who has, then you might have asked these questions. Walk With a Widow’s mission is to provide much needed information on a scarce subject: “What is it like being a Widow or Widower, accepting this new way of life, and how to support those who have lost a spouse?”
By supplying resources and knowledge our goal is to help Widows and Widowers find their “new normal” and to provide friends and family members with the information to support and embrace their loved ones.
Cynthia Mascarenhas
Founder
Our Mission
To provide resources, knowledge, and support to Widows, Widowers, friends and family members.
There are 13.6 million widows in America.
About 700,000 women become a widow in the U.S. each year.
There are 258,000,000 widows worldwide. Almost half of them live in extreme poverty, and many are subject to cruel violence.
On average, they survive for about 14 years after their husband’s death.
losing everything else as well.
More Statistics
Most of us are familiar with The Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory, which categorizes the potentially negative effect of life events on a scale of 1 to 100. No. 2, with a mean value of 73, is divorce, and death of a spouse tops the list at 100.
When a husband dies, a widow faces a higher risk of dying over the next few months. This has been labeled the “widowhood effect.” According to a 2013 study in the Journal of Public Health based on over 12,000 participants who were followed for 10 years, surviving spouses have a 66 percent increased chance of dying within the first three months after their partner’s death.
According to the Social Security Administration, the rate of poverty among elderly widows is three to four times higher than that of their married peers. In 2016, two-thirds of Americans over age 65 living in poverty were women. This is in part because when her spouse dies, an American widow sees a 37 percent decline in her household income. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the median income for women over the age of 65 is only about $17,000.
Widowers are more likely to remarry than widows — and do it sooner. Also, most married women predecease their husbands. According to Dr. Ken Doka, a gerontology consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America, elderly women who are left living on their own really need an active and strong support network of family and friends to help counteract their grief and loneliness of losing a spouse.
For Churches: The Widows Challenge
Have you ever taken the widow challenge? It’s very easy and will take only a moment of your time. Let’s get started shall we.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. — James 1:27
What does this verse mean to you personally? What does this verse mean to your church? Is your church doing enough to take care of the widows in your community? If you answered no to the last question, let me introduce you to Walk With a Widow.
Resources
Help someone by giving today.
Widows are Warriors!
Walk With a Widow Church Training Package
Walk With a Widow Guidebook Package
Give Now
Walk With a Widow is a ministry of Triumphant ‘N Treasured, Inc – a 501(c)3 organization. The donate button below will redirect you to a secure giving platform on our new website, where you can also read about our global outreach to impoverished widows.
Thank you for your generous support and prayers.
Walk with a Widow is now a ministry of Triumphant ‘N Treasured, Inc. – a non-profit organization.
We will be transitioning over to our new website: triumphantntreasured.org
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