HAND in HAND Thriving℠ was created to honor our Founder Marc’s grandparents, aunts & uncles, and parents, who all together successfully built a family culture, instilling the values of family closeness, togetherness, love, mutual respect, devotion to family & friends, being humble, maintaining a strong work ethic and always helping others in need

They all created and enabled Marc, his sister, eight cousins, their spouses and all their kids to grow up in a close-knit, multi-generational family culture built on this foundation, successfully navigating their own challenges, medical episodes, natural life transitions & stages, while keeping the family whole and resilient when faced with unimaginable obstacles

Marc’s Grandparents (Grandpa Adolph, Grandma Sadie, Nani Faye, Popsie Maury), aunts and uncles (Sandy & Mike, Charlene & Murray), were married for 58, 67, 64, 68 years respectively. All four of Marc’s parents enjoyed 30+ year second marriages and modeled incredible co-parenting, partnership, mutual respect and family closeness across both “sides of the family”, while prioritizing keeping everyone’s lives as “normal”, “healthy” and “whole”, despite the unavoidable, negative impacts family traumas bring, especially for children. These family values & culture are our foundation and continue to flourish today

Only after Marc’s Nani Faye passed away did his Popsie Maury share about their secret, HAND squeeze communication when in public or with company. Popsie would squeeze Nani’s hand 4 times symbolizing “Do you love me?”, Nani would then respond with 3 squeezes, symbolizing “Yes I Do!” Popsie would then ask “How Much?” with 2 more squeezes. Nani would then emphatically end the conversation with one last, hand crunching squeeze. Magically, this often happened right when the other had needs for connection, love and support