"Finding people that are going through similar situations is really helpful."
— Margaux
Meet Our Team
Helping Grief Make Sense.
At Grief Stories, we passionately believe sharing stories and insights fosters connection, helping people to cope with grief.
Sean Danby
Founder
Sean Danby has crafted numerous videos and multimedia commercial and corporate projects. Sean’s commercial client list includes ING Insurance, Leon’s, McDonald, Questrade, Reliance Home Energy and Sony BMG. He has also created and directed projects for Motorola, Randstad Canada and Scotiabank International. Executive Producer of “Basketball City,” a fast paced and youth oriented television series broadcasting basketball’s grassroots throughout Canada and starring two-time NBA MVP, Steve Nash. Sean views the grieving process as a personal experiential part of life, and that by sharing our stories we can better understand our own grief.
Rob Quartly
Founder
If you grew up watching Much Music in the 80’s, you already know Rob Quartly. Or at the very least, you know his work. As both a director and a producer, he gave birth to Canada’s music video production industry. It’s a role that has been recognized with JUNOs, CFTA personal achievement awards and his induction as the first member of the Much Music Hall of Fame.
His activity in the advertising industry has been equally successful with recognition at Cannes, Toronto and New York Art Directors Club, Bessies, Clios, One Show, Marketing Awards…
Television projects have seen him direct The Vacant Lot series, act as Co-Creator of the hit CBC show “The Triple Sensation”, and create/direct/executive produce the CHUM comedy series “And, Go!”
Grief Stories Board of Directors
Greg Burns
Chair
Greg Burns worked as a community developer and senior municipal administrator for nineteen years, followed by a twenty-year career as a college professor. As a private consultant, Greg has provided training in fundraising and strategic planning to municipal, provincial, state and federal agencies in both Canada and the United States. He has founded several community-based organizations dealing with youth, the unemployed, food bank, and environmental sustainability.
Greg has personally dealt with grief – the death of a daughter and the tragic loss of a close friend due to ALS. He wants to help make a difference through his volunteer work with Grief Stories by applying his various skill sets to increase the visibility of the organization and its various programs and services.
Mary Schulz
Mary Schulz joined the Grief Stories board of directors in 2021. A professional Social Worker for over 35 years, Mary has supported many people through life-limiting illnesses and loss. In learning to live with grief in her own life, Mary hopes that her lived experience will help Grief Stories continue to be an ever-evolving tool for those who are grieving.
Allie Bell
Allie Bell is the Director of Operations serving a 2 year term on the board of directors with
Grief Stories. She comes from a unique background as an arts and culture generalist with a focus on theatre; she is a published short story writer and an award winning playwright, in a past life. More recently, she returned to school when the pandemic decimated her industry and found the path to project management with a focus on process analysis and improvement utilizing agile and six sigma methodologies. She is now a Certified Associate Project Manager
(CAPM) and holds a yellow belt in Six Sigma.
Beyond the technical skills Allie Bell will bring to the role, she also proudly has extensive lived experience with grief, and traumatic loss, so her leadership style is grounded in compassion and consideration for the process that comes along with becoming a new person after losing someone, or sometimes something. Just
because our world stops, does not mean the world stops. We are often only given moments to become a new form of ourselves.
Emeka Ukogo
Emeka Okugo is a seasoned chartered accountant with more than 12 years’ experience in the finance industry. He has a community facing orientation and brings forth experience in a variety of issues.
Emeka is a co-founder of Project One Foundation, a grassroot initiative that caters to the needs of internally displaced persons. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors at Canadian Association of
Urban Financial Professionals.
He enjoys the purpose, the values and the conversations that take place in community-based organizations and values conversations and actions around making a difference in the lives of people. His education and experience in finance allows him to work in organizations with a special focus on creating safer and healthier support system for communities.
Stephanie Darroch
Stephanie has spent much of her career working in the not-profit-sector and feels passionately about leading a life in service to others.
Stephanie worked in the world of organ and tissue donation and transplantation for six years where she able to support bereaved loved ones, connecting them grief resources in the Ontario. It was here that she saw grief as part of the life cycle and felt passionately about supporting others through the most difficult times in their lives.
Carolyn Osborn
Carolyn Osborn (she/her) leverages her intersectional experiences with loss and grief alongside a diverse professional background to enrich the mission of Grief Stories. With expertise in research administration and non-profit management, Carolyn is adept at leading and serving diverse stakeholder groups through a balance of flexibility and accountability. Personally and professionally, Carolyn navigates challenges and changes through a people-centered approach. This viewpoint translates into her commitment to community engagement and enrichment, underscored by a recognition of the responsibility to give back and acknowledgement of her own immense privilege.
Meghann Cant
Meghann comes to Grief Stories having spent most of her life caring for animals, both personally and professionally. She has worked and volunteered in a variety of animal settings, from veterinary hospitals to wildlife rehabilitation centres to shelters, rescues, and sanctuaries. She has also welcomed dozens of animals into her home over the years, and knows well what it means to love and lose a pet and not necessarily receive the much-needed understanding and support of others. As a result, she is passionate
about normalizing and validating peoples' grief experiences, especially for losses not typically recognized by society at large.
Meghann has a Master’s degree in animal welfare and a Bachelor’s degree in social work, a unique
combination that gives her a deep appreciation for the human-animal bond. She is keen to use her academic background and experience in non-profit advocacy and education to support the great work that Grief Stories does.
Lubna Forzley
Lubna Forzley is the CEO & Founder of Stories, a coaching portal that supports founders
and corporate leaders to tell the world the right stories and most importantly shift the
stories they tell themselves.
Lubna has worked for more than 20 years in leadership roles within International blue-
chip organizations including Coca-Cola and the UNDP. She then became an ICF certified
coach and completed Dr. Gabor Mate’s Compassionate Inquiry Program.
A believer in the power of Stories, Lubna connected with the name & cause of
Griefstories.org. She is a Global speaker and has addressed grief in her TEDx talk, which
focuses on purpose.
Lubna has witnessed grief throughout her childhood, as she
watched a war take over her country of origin – Lebanon. This made her very aware of
the power of purpose and leaving a Story behind.
Dionne Downer
Get Involved
Grief Stories is growing and looking for people who are passionate about our mission and have the skills and experience to make a difference.
Grief Stories Operations Team
Alyssa Warmland
Executive Director
Alyssa Warmland is an interdisciplinary artist and activist. Her work utilizes elements of radical vulnerability, restorative justice, mindfulness, compassion, performance, and direct action.
She is a mother, La Leche League Leader, Board member of La Leche League Canada, writer, podcaster, producer, director, performer, content creator, not-for-profit administrator, and abstract visual artist. Lyss is a strong advocate for fumbling towards an ethic of care, especially when it comes to the topics of birth, matresence, and grief. Most of all, she’s interested in the way people choose to tell their stories and how that keeps them well.
Lyss is currently pursuing her Masters of Counselling Psychology and plans to specialize in perinatal mental health. In her spare time, you can find her in the forest.
Lyss is a 33 year old white, queer, disabled woman who lives with her partner and two boys on Robinson-Huron (Treaty 61, 1850) land stolen from Omàmìwininìwag (Algonquin) and Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ Cree peoples.
Jessica Milette
Healthcare Consultant
Jessica Milette is a registered social worker, practicing since 2018.
Jessica has experience working at a Hospice co-creating meaningful legacy projects with families, providing support to those at end of life and their families, as well as creating individual and group supports for anyone grieving in the
community.
Jessica is the owner and of Cultivating Connections. Her expertise includes helping individuals and
families facing anticipatory grief, ambiguous loss, disenfranchised losses, and sudden deaths.
Jessica believes in the power of connection; within ourselves, with those who have died, those we are in
relationship with, and with our greater communities. Through sharing our stories of grief and loss, we
tend to our connection with those who have died and creating connections with others.
Jessica is a white woman living on the traditional territory of the Anishnabek, the Haudenosaunee, the
Attiwonderonk, and the Mississaugas of the Credit peoples, also known as Guelph, ON.
Maureen Pollard
Healthcare Consultant
Maureen Pollard is a Registered Social Worker who has worked in the field of social work since 1991. In private practice since 2011, Maureen is a specialist in traumatic bereavement, helping individuals, families and groups navigate life after losses, including pregnancy and infant loss, child death, suicide loss, homicide loss and sudden or accidental death. Maureen is a certified Compassionate Bereavement Care provider, and she is trained in RTS (Resolve Through Sharing) Bereavement Care.
Maureen’s practice areas also include work as a certified Compassion Fatigue Specialist and Educator, supporting front line professionals in building the resilience necessary to survive and thrive in high-stress, trauma-exposed work.
Matt Kowalyk
Chief Analyst
Matt Kowalyk tries to use both sides of his brain as much as he can. An interdisciplinary artist focusing on storytelling through music, lyric, drama, and poetry, he spends his days as a Data Analyst for a major telecom. Matt has served on multiple boards for nonprofits and volunteers in the community teaching music with groups like SONG and Rebound.
Using his two decades of analytical and data mining experience, Matt is looking forward to diving into the information and providing clear examples on how Grief Stories can continue its journey to being a reliable and trusted resource for so many in need.
Matt came to Grief Stories as a person in need of help and GS did indeed help. From content to consume, to contributing content, Grief Stories continues to be a place that shows we are not alone, and that we are strong enough.
Sondra Marcon
Social Media Manager/Healthcare Consultant
Sondra is a counsellor, birth & postpartum doula and educator who supports families and individuals by meeting them where they are.
Sondra been a certified doula and childbirth educator for over 12 years and have served over 200 families in this role. She developed the Infant and Pregnancy Loss Support Program for doulas with Doula Training Canada and continues to support families in her role as a loss doula.
She has also been a counsellor in various settings for over 20 years offering grief counselling, crisis management support, and individual and family counselling both in nonprofit and private practice settings.
Sondra is currently pursuing her Masters in Counselling Psychology to best serve her counselling clients in the future.
When she's not working you can find her listening to a true crime podcast or feeding her 2 tiny humans.