Who We Are
We’re The Men’s Grief Network®, founded to connect men in grief. Information and resources through the website supports and educates those who are grieving, regardless of the loss: the death of a partner/spouse. The death of a child or grandchild. The death of a sibling. The death of a parent.
Let us be a resource.
Mission Statement
The Men’s Grief Network® educates the public about the special needs of men who have lost their spouse or life partner, child, parent or sibling. We do this by promoting the development of support groups for men to manage their grief and adjust to a new life and by advocating for research into men’s unique needs to deal with grief.
Our vision is to make appropriate groups available nationwide to all grieving men that seek support.
Men’s Grief Network®, a project of the National Widowers' Organization, Inc. Corporate Officers, Board of Directors and Staff
- Samuel M. Feldmen, Chairman of the Board
- Sherry R. Schachter, PhD, FT, RN, Vice Chair, President & Treasurer
- Frederick H. Spero, Executive Director
- Adam Larson, Director
- AJ Coleman, MBA, CAMS, CFE, Director
- Charles E. Schwartz, MD, Director
- Joseph W. Walko, Director
- Kathleen R. Gilbert, PH.D., C.F.L.E., F.T., Director
- Ken Levy, Director
- Kei Okada, MDiv., BCC, Director
- Leslie M. Bernstein, Director
- Maria Georgopoulos, LMHC, FT, Director
- Rita Lavery & Jerry Mohr, Lavery Design Associates, Ltd. Web/Marketing Team
Samuel M. Feldmen
Chairman of the Board
Sherry R. Schachter
PhD, FT, RN, Vice Chair, President & Treasurer
In 2021, Dr Schachter retired as the Executive Director Emerita, Bereavement Services
for Calvary Hospital / Hospice. Prior to her work at Calvary Hospital, Dr Schachter was at
Memorial Sloan Kettering Center where she held many positions including Nurse
Manager, Psychiatry Fellow, and Assistant Attending Grief Therapist. For over forty
years Sherry has worked with dying patients and their family caregivers. Her work with
bereaved men led her to form a Men’ Bereavement Support Group which continues
today. In 2016 Sherry was appointed to the NWO Board and in 2021 she took over as
President and Vice Chair of the NWO. We are now expanding our mission to reach to all
bereaved men grieving from deaths other than a spouse or partner with the Men’s Grief
Network, a Project of the National Widowers’ Organization.
Dr Schachter is the mother of five and grandmother of ten. She is an avid quilter who
does all her quilting by hand.
Frederick H. Spero
Executive Director
Adam Larson
Director
Adam Larson, a father, musician, and technology professional. He serves as a
Board Member of the National Widowers’ Organization because he had to walk the path of intense grief when his wife died. He navigated the tricky path of single parent widowhood while balancing a career and trying to help others.
AJ Coleman
MBA, CAMS, CFE, Director
Charles E. Schwartz
MD, Director
Joseph W. Walko
Director
Joe Walko is a father, author and finance professional who chose to serve as a Board member
for the Men’s Grief because he had to walk the path of intense grief after the death of his wife
10 years ago, when she was only 45. He navigated the tricky path of single parent widowhood
while balancing a career and trying to help others through his work with local bereavement
groups.
Kathleen R. Gilbert
PH.D., C.F.L.E., F.T., Director
Ken Levy
Director
Ken Levy joined the NWO board following the loss of his wife of 18 years to a rare and
aggressive type of breast cancer. He became an advocate for battling inflammatory
breast cancer, spearheading a New York State – wide proclamation of IBC awareness
day. Levy struggled with prolonged grief and found it hard to find bereavement support
that focused on the male perspective of loss, the kind that NWO now helps to provide.
Levy works as a freelance journalist, having written for The Guardian, The New York
Times, and The San Francisco Examiner and was host of radio’s Environmental Minute,
a daily program on ecological issues.
Kei Okada
MDiv., BCC, Director
Kei Okada was born in New York and raised in Kanazawa,Japan. An initial plan to study for a year in U.S. extended to three art schools followed by four years of working with post-modern dancers in dance theatres in New York City. His love of language led him to study biblical languages at Union Theological Seminary, where the field education course led him to find a meaningful vocation in chaplaincy through a clinical training of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education). After working at NY Presbyterian Cornell Medical Center’s “Program for Children with AIDS” and Housing Works Adult Day Health Care programs for the homeless living with HIV, he worked for 15.5 years at Visiting Nurse Service of New York and Palliative Care. In the end of 2021, he retired from his position as Program manager, End-of-Life Spiritual Care, and currently he is writing his first book on how to facilitate meaningful dialogues with those who are living their final stage of life. Kei is a Board-Certified Chaplain under Association of Professional Chaplains (APC), and an Associate of Columbia University Seminar on Death. As a Christian mystic and an artist, Kei has been offering and writing in the U.S. and Japan on end-of-life consciousness and communication, integrating Art, Spiritual care, and Medicine.
Leslie M. Bernstein
Director
Maria Georgopoulos
LMHC, FT, Director
Maria Georgopoulos, LMHC, FT, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Fellow in
Thanatology, whose work focuses on grief, loss, and trauma. She obtained her Master’s
degree in Mental Health Counseling from New York University and received additional
training through The Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy’s Psychoanalytic
Training Program and The Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute.
Formerly the Director of Bereavement Services at Calvary Hospital, she was
responsible for overseeing 33 bereavement support groups across three sites in
Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan that serve hundreds of families each year; led a
team of 8 bereavement counselors and spearheaded efforts to expand their
professional learning programs. She also worked with grieving families at The American
Red Cross of Greater New York after 9/11.
Ms. Georgopoulos values raising awareness about death and dying in our communities.
To support this endeavor, she has taught as an adjunct professor, contributed chapters
in various publications, is a board member with the National Widowers’ Organization
and participates in different committees with the Association for Death Education and
Counseling and the National Alliance for Children's Grief. She has worked with
countless individuals experiencing trauma and loss over the length of her career,
conducts trainings for mental health professionals nationally and maintains a private
practice in New York.