Beverly Hills resident’s organization supports grandfamilies

BEVERLY HILLS — Over 2.3 million grandparents in the United States are raising their grandchildren, and over 20% live below the poverty level.

Craig Nash, from Beverly Hills, began It’s a Grand Life to help support grand families and kinship caregivers.

Nash is part of a grandfamily himself — he and his wife have been raising his granddaughter after his daughter left.

 

Award-winning support
At Generations United’s Global Intergenerational Conference with the GrandFamilies Award, Nash was awarded the Grandfamily Award for the support he has provided grandparents who are raising grandchildren.

Jamarl Clark, the assistant director of the National Center on Grandfamilies through Generations United, said, “Generations United is the only national organization dedicated to improving the lives of children, youth and older adults through intergenerational collaboration, public policies and programs that unite and strengthen all generations.”

Nash is part of the group of caregiver advocates for Generations United —  titled Grand Voices.

“We provide that platform for them to come together as a community to develop skills and work together and connect,” Clark said.

 

The podcast
The “It’s a Grand Life” podcast started in 2023.

Some of the episodes include interviews with Julie Braciszewski, of Monarch Behavioral Health, who discusses “Anxiety in Children and Guidelines For Social Media Use,” author and psychotherapist Elaine K. Williams on “Grand Family Advice,” and Cyndi Pettit of Neighborhood House on poverty prevention.

“We just thought we were going to be a podcast until we interviewed so many folks and realized that many grandparents that are raising their grandkids did not do an adequate job preparing for their own retirement, and now they’ve got one to three additional mouths to feed, and they’re just really struggling,” Nash said.

 

The Grand Fund
Last summer, Nash decided to start a 501(c)(3) to further assist grandfamilies, The Grand Fund. Since the launch, they have assisted over 125 families.

The Grand Fund supports Michigan families and plans to extend its reach to other states.

“It’s just been a labor of love. I can’t wait to see where this takes us in the years ahead. But there’s, there’s no real joy like helping folks who really need it,” Nash said.

Some of the families helped are featured on the website. Among the many families helped is one who received a washing machine; a grandmother in Pontiac who received assistance with repairing her minivan; and a family who received a new wheelchair ramp at their home. To assist many of these families, It’s a Grand Life partners with other organizations that support the local community.