OUR STORY
Based in Mt. Pleasant (SC), The Ruth Rhoden Craven Foundation established Postpartum Support Charleston in March 2000.
Known as a vibrant, stable and vivacious young woman, Ruth suffered from postpartum depression after her son was born – two months after his birth on December 5, 1999, she succumbed and took her own life.
Nearly 20 years later, suicide is still the second leading cause of death for postpartum women.
To prevent this tragedy from finding another family, Ruth’s mother, Helena Bradford, and her childhood friends Elaine Earl and Mary Anna Mullinax formed The Ruth Rhoden Craven Foundation, Inc. to provide support, education and healing for mothers and their families.
From the beginning, our mission has always been to provide support and resources to women and their families struggling with maternal mental illnesses including depression, anxiety, OCD, and psychosis during and after pregnancy.
For 17 years, our organization grew and developed propelled entirely by volunteers and donors. In 2017, Postpartum Support Charleston brought on Executive Director Elaine DeaKyne to further the mission, implement innovative programs and develop the organization’s outreach.
And grow we have.
Our annual fundraiser, the Moms’ Run raised $25,700 in 2014, and in 4 short years we nearly doubled that achievement by raising $46,800 with 766 participants in 2018.
In 2018 we also introduced our mom mentor program, a new training and support structure of moms-for-moms mentors and peer support group facilitators. To date, 12 mom mentors have completed the program and gone on to serve 100s of mothers and counting.
Postpartum Support Charleston is just getting started, too. For 2019 our main initiative is to implement Moving Into Motherhood, an online community connecting moms-with-moms for safe discussion and access to peer support.
Won’t you help us put mom first?
