Before completing college, Mary M. McCambridge, had experienced the death of four friends - two teenagers to drunk drivers, two college students to inoperable cancer. Later she would sustain many other deaths of family members and close friends including the murder of her 11 year-old stepdaughter, which took her former husband and herself on an eighteen year journey to help solve the crime. These life experiences led her to become involved in the field of bereavement.  

Mary is a bereavement specialist, author, columnist, speaker, private bereavement coach and nationally-known crime victims’ rights advocate. She developed and edited the award-winning National Directory of Bereavement Support Groups and Services, Understanding Your Grieving Heart After a Loved One’s Death, Homicide: Understanding the Unique Challenges Survivors Face and Surviving the Holidays and Other Significant Events After a Loved One's Death, as well as other works in this field.  

She uses her expertise to assist the bereaved through her askmarymac.com website where her weekly bereavement column, blog, articles, books and forums help hurting people better understand their journey.

She is Founder and President of the Foundation for Grieving Children, the only national public charity which raises funds and provides grants to community-based non-profits which assist, counsel, comfort and educate children, teens, young adults and their families after a loved one's death.

She received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Scranton and an MBA in Finance/International Business from Fordham University. She was honored by the New York State Senate for her work with Survivors of Homicide Victims, and has been featured in newspaper articles in the New York Daily News, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel and other media.  She has also appeared on radio and television show including CBS’s Up to the Minute, and News 12 Long Island. 

It is her passion to address the unmet needs of grieving children, teens and young adults which birthed the creation of the Foundation and to educate society to the needs of bereaved persons everywhere.