PITTSBURGH -- Valentine’s Day is traditionally a happy day full of love and romance. Yet the holiday marked by heart-shaped candy and red roses can also be hard for those who’ve experienced the death of a loved one and are still grieving.

That’s especially true for children, who often don’t know how to talk about their feelings after losing a beloved family member or close friend.

So when Jen Walker and her husband, Chris, of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, heard about a Valentine’s Day-inspired baking event sponsored by Hope’s Road for grieving young people and their caregivers, they jumped at the chance to participate.

In October 2024, their 10-year-old twins lost Peter, their beloved dziadek, or grandfather, who lived nearby and whom they were very close to. While daughter Genevieve has been able to express her grief over the past year, her brother, Jude, has really struggled. The fifth grader seemed to find some solace at the hands-on “Bake Your Heart Out” class on Feb. 14 at Flour Power, during which kids baked two desserts in memory of their loved ones.

“It sounded perfect — something fun and exciting and in a safe place,” Walker said as she watched her children prepare two sugary treats in the Hampton cooking studio: ooey-gooey chocolate lava cakes and icing-dipped cake pops topped with an array of colorful sprinkles.

Gathering with other children who have experienced similar losses, Walker said, shows them they’re not alone. It also demonstrates in a very real way that you can find joy amid your grief.

“It feels safe because it’s with other kids, and they’re almost distracted” because they’re busy cooking, Walker noted.

She likened it to the one-on-one front-to-back seat conversations parents often have with their kids in a car while they’re driving. Because they don’t feel like they’re on the spot, “they’re freer the express their emotions,” she said.

“When you’re cooking, you can say things you might not otherwise.”

The fact that the free workshop was an activity the entire family could do together only made the experience sweeter.

“It’s just wonderful,” Walker said as her kids put the finishing touches on their treats. “It brings people together over something they have in common. We can comfort each other.”

Last Saturday’s event was a first of its kind for Hope’s Road, formerly known as Good Samaritan Hospice’s Youth Bereavement Care. Founded through Concordia Lutheran Ministries in 2020, the faith-based service provides grieving children, teens and adults up to age 21 with individualized support and year-round connection with other grieving families through activities like group storytelling, movie nights, arts and crafts, and holiday events.

Gathering with peers, said GSH executive director Kristin Laboda, gives children a way to walk through their grief and understand that everyone goes through it, “so maybe they don’t feel so alone.”

The program started during the COVID-19 pandemic with just two virtual events. Under Laboda’s leadership since 2023, it has grown to where it now offers something fun for kids almost every month of the year.

On May 2, for example, kids and their families are invited to gather at its office in Middlesex to create a personalized planter pot in memory of a loved one; on Aug. 9, it will host a butterfly release to help its young charges honor loved ones.

Staffed by grief and bereavement professionals, Hope’s Road has served hundreds of children through schools, churches, libraries and community organization over the years.

The idea for a hands-on cooking class, Laboda said, was born out of her own life experience of cooking and baking with her paternal grandmother, Ann Demharter, while growing up in Sarver.

Even years later, she can’t help but think of her grandma every time she bakes her homemade bread recipe. The aromas and tactile act of stirring together flour, water and other ingredients “brings that person back to you,” she said.

Her own daughter, Grace, “is a little sous chef,” so she figured other kids might also be interested in playing in the kitchen for a morning or an afternoon.

Food, after all, is an expression of love. As Julie Tuskan — who oversees the Hope’s Road program — noted in an email promoting the event, baking or cooking a person’s favorite things is a meaningful way to remember them.

The nonprofit found the perfect partner in the Pittsburgh franchise of Flour Power Cooking Studios, which retired naval officer Amy Knight opened four years ago in the Hampton Shoppes off Route 8.

A native of Akron, Ohio, Knight’s last duty station during her two decades of active service in the Navy was Pittsburgh. Wanting to be her own boss after “being bossed around for 20 years in the Navy,” she decided her next step would be to run a business. Only it had to be something in which her two daughters could be involved and not an “awkward thing where they had to hide behind a desk.”

Though she isn’t a professional chef, Knight has cooked her whole life and is a self-professed “foodie” who has eaten her way around the world.

Cooking, she said, is not only engaging for kids but also a lot of fun.

“I’ve seen how excited they get” while mixing, chopping and baking, she said.

Flour Power offers cooking classes on weekdays for chefs ages 5 and up, and cooking camps and birthday parties over the weekends. Knight also works with various nonprofit groups several times a month on fundraisers and group activities. So when Hope’s Road reached out, it was a no-brainer.

“It’s about building relationships,” she said.

Many of the shop’s two dozen or so employees are high school and college students who share Knight’s twin loves of baking and working with children. They include 17-year-old Addie Rennebeck of Ross, a North Hills High School junior with two years of instruction under her belt.

Rennebeck plans on becoming a teacher after graduation and also comes from a cooking family, so the hands-on instruction in cooking and baking she provides at Flour Power has proven a good training ground.

“It’s great because you’re [working] with people who are not used to doing things together, and it brings them close together,” she said.

The Feb. 14 event was especially meaningful, Rennebeck added, because she lost her maternal grandmother, Mary Lou, two months ago, “and I really understand what they’re feeling.”

Rooted in Christian faith, the day started with GSH spiritual care coordinator Claire Gray leading the group of children and their parents in a prayer, followed by a lighthearted Q&A session in which she lined up the ingredients: flour, eggs, chocolate and “pretend milk because the cow is busy.”

Just as a cake requires ingredients, she told them, so too does prayer include “honest feelings.”

“You can tell God if you’re sad or happy,” she said. “You can talk about love and who you’re grateful for.”

Prayer, she noted, “feeds our heart and soul and makes us feel better.”

Then it was on to one of the most important tasks of the day — decorating the paper toques laid out on the work tables with magic markers, tying on pint-sized red aprons and washing their hands before doing any actual cooking.

As 9-year-old Bryce Bovaird of Shaler dipped the cake pops he made from crumbled cupcakes into a container of melted chocolate, he remembered the “best” chocolate chip cookies his great “grammy” Barb Lanke of Ross used to make.

“You could never turn them down,” he said.

His mom, Maggie Bovaird, said she brought Bryce and his little brother, Declan, 6, to the event at the suggestion of their school counselor, because the family has lost six members and close friends in the past year, including her mother, Sharyl.

“My mom was part of their everyday life,” Bovaird said, “And I want them to see it’s OK to cry and talk about their feelings but also to have fun.”

Laura and Eric Chiesa of Oakmont thought the Valentine’s Day event would turn what has been a sad time of year for the family into a celebration for their 4-year-old daughter, Leona, with whom they often cook at home. Two years ago, the couple lost her sister, Mary, two days before her due date. They were referred by Pittsburgh Bereavement Doulas.

“The month of February we like to focus on Mary to make up for lost memories,” said Laura Chiesa, as she bounced a smiling 4-month old Mark on her knees. Making cake pops and lava cakes together as a family, she said, “is a fun thing to keep Mary’s memory alive.” The fact the two-hour event fell on Feb. 14 made it “extra special.”

“It keeps us busy and focused on what Mary would want us to do.”

Instructors like Chris Raimondi, who works as an administrative assistant for the Hampton Township School District, add to Flour Power’s appeal.

A paraeducator who worked with special-needs kids before becoming a part-time instructor at the studio, Raimondi brought a playful energy to the day’s lessons that was as fun for the kids testing their culinary skills as it was instructive.

Don’t worry if your cake pop falls apart as you dip it into the icing, she said. “It will taste just as good” in pieces, she insisted with a laugh. Can’t decide which sprinkles to use? Use a little of everything, she advised with a wink.

“This is a wonderful idea to bring people together over something they have in common,” she said as she jiggled a tray of lava cakes to determine if they were done cooking. (They weren’t, insisted a helper, so back they went into the oven for two more minutes.)

The joint experience in a safe and welcoming space, Raimonti said, “brings bonding to parent and child” — an adventure that makes them stronger and more resilient while celebrating someone they love. “They’re able to comfort one another.”

Walker said the hardest part of her job is spreading the word among the Pittsburgh community about Hope’s Road’s services, which are available not just to Christians but also individuals of all faiths and backgrounds as they navigate their grief journey.

As the program’s new name makes clear, “it’s not just hospice,” she said.

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For more information on Hope’s Road, visit the events page at www.ConcordiaLM.org or call 800-720-2557. Referrals are accepted year-round.

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