Katie Bruell says her business Mariposa After Loss Assistance “is designed to help people with all the things that need to get done after someone passes away.” After witnessing friends and family dealing with the aftermath of loss, she saw an opportunity to step in and assist. “If you’ve seen someone go through being an executor and trying to deal with so many frustrating and difficult and time-consuming tasks, while in the midst of grief, it’s really pretty overwhelming,” Bruell shares.

In the fall of 2023, she began researching ways to streamline this overwhelming process and create a roadmap that could be used to help others. When it became apparent this could be an actual business, she consulted with Sandy Jones of the Los Alamos Small Business Development Center who referred her to Self Help’s SEED Money grant program.

 

Buell received a SEED grant that helped cover the cost of a training program through Professionals of After Loss Services. “So now I’m a certified member of their organization and there’s ongoing continuing education and message boards and a lot of good opportunities to keep going,” she says.

 

Mariposa After Loss Assistance, LLC has been up and running since January 2024. Buell has been working on developing partnerships with community members and organizations. She works with The Cricket Window and Junkit Hauling and will continue to build local connections. She is seeing the need for her services in Los Alamos because, as she says, “we have a lot of older folks whose children probably live somewhere else, far away, and have busy lives and jobs and children and so it’s really difficult for them to deal with all of those tasks.”

 

She’s heard from community partners who are appreciative that they at least have a website with resources to direct clients to, and that they can send them to a real person who helps with after loss assistance.

 

Even if folks just visit her website and find helpful information, it’s worthwhile for Bruell.
“I just want to keep helping people,” she says. “I just want people to get what they need and to make their bad time a little bit easier for them.”