Sugar Land resident Michele Lara started the 3A Bereavement Foundation in Houston in 1997 to help indigent and low-income families bury their loved ones. Shortly before the group celebrated its 10th anniversary luncheon Saturday, Lara spoke with reporter Peggy O'Hare about the group's mission.

Q: Why did you start the foundation?

Michele Lara of the 3 "A" Bereavement Foundation provides bereavement services to indigent and low-income families within the Houston metropolitan area.

A: Actually, it was truly the Lord that led me this way — toward bereaved families.

Q: How did that happen?

A: I got my funeral director's license. ... After you get out of mortuary school, you have to intern at a licensed funeral home for a year. While I was doing my internship, I saw how families were just struggling to pay for funeral and burial expenses. Sometimes, their loved ones weren't being buried for two weeks. I've seen it months.

Q: You offer quite a bit beyond burial as well, don't you?

A: Yes. We offer families five hours of bereavement counseling at no charge to them. ... Also, we help crime victims' families — and they do not have to be indigent — fill out the application for crime victims' compensation. We get it processed so they can get the benefits. A lot of families, especially low-income and indigent families, have no idea about crime victims' compensation.

Q: How much is that compensation in a typical case?

A: They can get up to $50,000 in benefits. But for funeral and burial, they will give a maximum of $4,500. They'll pay for loss of income, they'll pay for loss of wages, they'll pay for child care.

Q: Tell us about your client base and what sort of circumstances these people in need face.

A: One of the fastest growing segments of the population is the working poor — families that are working every day but still can't make a livable wage. So most of our families are working. A lot of our families are on some kind of assistance, like maybe (Supplemental Security Income) or Social Security if they're elderly ... They'll get our number from the Red Cross and the United Way. Hospital social workers have us down as a referral source. And churches.

Q: Are the loved ones these families need help burying the victims of natural deaths or victims of violent crime?

A: Basically, they're coming from all categories. But the majority of our families are either people who had cancer or had some kind of illness. We get a lot of cancer patients; we get a lot of AIDS patients. Then we get our crime victims' families. We get a lot of children — somebody just called me last night, a baby had slipped out of the house, and they found him in the pool. A lot of women who have stillborn babies or babies who are born with illnesses.

Q: How does the foundation find money to help pay for this?

A: We get our funds from individual donations. We get donations from churches. We're really trying to get grants from corporations. Our first corporation to actually give us a grant is Conoco Phillips — so I hope that's the beginning of opening up the door for corporations. For the last five years, we have been one of the charities that's been selected by the Chevron Houston Marathon — the Run For A Reason program, the philanthropic arm of the marathon.

Q: You have a very small staff. Do you find yourself sometimes overwhelmed with people's needs and requests?

A: Yeah, we do get overwhelmed. In fact, today, when we got there, it was 12 calls. Monday, it was 19 calls. But you just kind of buckle down and start making the calls.

Q: So often, people don't think of the stillborn babies or the forgotten segments of the population and how they, too, are deserving of a decent, compassionate burial. I guess that's one of the things you really strive to accomplish?

A: Yes. Memorial Hermann Hospital contacted us about three years ago and they had some (stillborn) babies that were left at the hospital.

I assume that the young mothers thought the hospital would take care of it. ... The babies had been there for over a year. They asked us would we bury them. That was a very heart-wrenching thing. But we had full burials for those babies. We picked them up from the hospital and had them taken care of with the funeral home and had graveside services.

Q: It sounds like it can be emotionally trying work. What keeps you passionate about this?

A: I think just having a family come into the office all distraught, at their wits' end, not knowing how they're going to get their loved ones buried ... once we are able to help them, just the gratitude that they show. In our office, we do a lot of hugging. We do a lot of praying with our families.

I have a very loving staff. It's just really gratifying when you have a family come in all beat up, and by the time we get through and they're leaving, they just feel better.

Q: Tell us how people can get in touch with you.

A: They can call our office, which is 713-845-2596. Our Web site is www.3abereavement.org

peggy.ohare@chron.com