Independence: Grief center opens arms to Imperial victims' families

INDEPENDENCE -- A suburban grief center is opening its arms and its resources to the Imperial Avenue neighborhood of Cleveland, a neighborhood still reeling from the murders of 11 women.

Cornerstone of Hope has served grieving families for six years from its center on Brecksville Road in Independence.

On Tuesday, Cornerstone's co-founder Mark Tripodi traveled to the Cleveland neighborhood where eleven women were recently found murdered.

"We really need to reach out to these famlies," Tripodi said, on a visit to the Gaines Funeral Home, which is handling arrangements for two of the 11 victims of the Imperial Avenue murders.

"It's such a tragic story and situation that we're committed to service, and we really have a heart for these families," he told Gaines' funeral directors Kaye Evans and Sherry Ward.

Cornerstone, Gaines, and other interested funeral homes will partner with local churches to find ways to counsel, console, and minister to anyone touched by the horror discovered at the home of Anthony Sowell on Imperial Avenue.

"For them to contact us and want to partner with us and with the families we've served, in offering them the support and the counseling they need, I thought was wonderful," said Ward, who was preparing for the funeral of Kim Yvette Smith, one of the 11 slain women.

"We do this for a living, we love what we do," Evans told WKYC, "but at the end of the day, it's a ministry, and it has to be handled in a way that God would want us to handle it."

Gaines and other Cleveland funeral homes have offered their services free of charge to the families of the victims. Cornerstone is making the same offer.

"They're going to need to sit down and talk with professionals that can really walk with them along their journey," said Tripodi. "That's what Cornerstone of Hope is all about."

The Tripodis founded Cornerstone of Hope in 2003, three years after their 3-year-old son, Bobby, died suddenly. At that time, the Tripodis found that local grief counseling services in Northeast Ohio were not enough for their needs.

"They're going to need intimate, compassionate care," Tripodi says, of those touched by the Imperial Avenue murders. "Not just once a month, but ongoing, and that's what Cornerstone can and will provide to these families."

Both Cornerstone of Hope and the Gaines Funeral Home are partners with WKYC in an online service that assists in remembering loved ones, and in the grieving process.

It is called Tributes and can be found HERE or on the homepage at wkyc.com.