By NICOLE LOGGINS / Staff Writer

COLUMBIANA – When Dolores Jones suffered the traumatic loss of her husband two years ago, she was looking for a way to cope. She traveled to Alabaster to attend a grief support group every week and soon realized there had to be others like her in Columbiana.

“Nine months after he died, I started going to Kingwood Church in Alabaster and it helped me so much. I decided I needed to start a group here,” Jones said.

The grief support group will meet at the First Baptist Church in Columbiana at 5:30 p.m. beginning on March 11. The group will gather in the church’s conference room during the 13-week course.

Jones was concerned for older individuals who may have to drive long distances to attend other meetings. She said she set the meeting schedule during the day so attendees can get home before it gets dark.

“They’ are DVD’s that present hope for their future,” she said. “It’s a biblically based program. It helped me so much I just thought, ‘I need to do this.’ I felt like I could make something good out of something bad.”

Jones said she struggled not only with the emotional turmoil associated with losing a loved one, but also with planning the arrangements that followed.

“Everybody that will attend will probably have suffered some kind of loss,” she said. “For me knowing that other people are experiencing what I was going through, like not sleeping and getting the legal and insurance arrangements taken care of ,was important.”

The group curriculum is spiritual and informative, Jones said.

“If they want to share, they can, but they do not have to. They can gain a lot of information by just listening,” she said. “It’s good for those who have lost a spouse or a child. Whatever their loss, it will be a good thing for them.”

The course is free and open to the public. Jones encouraged anyone who is suffering from grief to attend one class.

“I was thinking when I went (to the class) I would probably go one or two times but I stayed the whole time and learned so much,” Jones said.