Hidden Gems: Meet Berlyn Sharp of Rose to Light

Today we’d like to introduce you to Berlyn Sharp.

Hi Berlyn, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Rose to Light began with a loss that completely changed my life. On June 7, 2023, when I was 14 years old, my grandmother, Rose, died by suicide. She was an incredibly important person in my life, and at 14, I didn’t have the words or tools to understand the grief that followed. For nearly two years, I kept so much of what I was feeling to myself. I didn’t know how to talk about grief, I didn’t know what was “normal” to feel, and I didn’t know where someone my age was supposed to turn.
As I began to process my own loss, I started realizing that I wasn’t alone. There were so many teenagers experiencing grief while trying to navigate school, friendships, sports, family, and simply growing up. Yet grief was something we rarely talked about. Young people are often expected to keep moving forward without ever being taught how to understand what they are feeling or how to cope with loss in a healthy way.

That realization ultimately became Rose to Light, a nonprofit I created and named in honor of my grandmother.

At its core, Rose to Light exists to help teenagers navigate their grief rather than feel like they have to hide it or navigate it alone. I wanted to build the kind of resource I wish I had at 14—a place where young people could learn about grief, find healthy ways to cope, express emotions they may not know how to put into words, and understand that there is no single correct way to grieve.

One of the biggest parts of that mission has been creating our free journaling app. Journaling became an important part of understanding my own emotions, but I also realized that staring at a blank page and being told to “write about how you feel” can be incredibly overwhelming. I wanted to make that first step easier. The app gives young people an approachable, private space to check in with themselves, journal, reflect, and begin processing what they are carrying at their own pace.

Rose to Light has continued to grow beyond the app. I’ve created educational and mental-health content, community outreach initiatives, and programs such as Bloom Out Loud. I’ve also designed T-shirts, hoodies, and crewnecks that allow people to wear the message behind Rose to Light. The apparel is more than merchandise to me; it is another way to make conversations surrounding grief visible. Something as simple as a message on a sweatshirt can remind someone that what they are feeling matters or even open a conversation that otherwise may never have happened.

Pageantry has also given me a unique opportunity to bring this mission to a larger audience. As Miss Teen West Coast International 2026, I’ve been able to use my platform to advocate for grief education, speak about my own experience, and connect with people and organizations who share the goal of better supporting young people through loss.

Building Rose to Light has also taught me that grief and healing are not linear. There isn’t a timeline someone has to follow, and what helps one person may not help another. I never want Rose to Light to tell someone how they are supposed to grieve. I want it to give teenagers options, education, and a place to begin. Sometimes that might mean journaling. Sometimes it might mean learning why they are feeling a certain way. Sometimes it may simply mean realizing that someone else understands.

What makes this work so personal is knowing where it came from. There was a time when talking about my grandmother’s death felt almost impossible. Now, I’m able to say her name and allow her memory to be part of something that reaches other young people. I can’t change what happened on June 7, 2023, but I can choose what I build from it, so I turned my pain into purpose.

I’m 17 now, and I still see Rose to Light as being at the beginning of its story. My goal is to continue expanding our resources, reaching more teenagers, working with schools, athletic communities, and other organizations, and helping make grief education something young people can access when they need it.
Ultimately, I want a teenager experiencing loss to find Rose to Light and feel something I desperately needed to feel at 14: I’m not alone in this, what I’m feeling is valid, and I don’t have to know exactly how to navigate this yet. If Rose to Light can be the place that helps them take that first step, then everything I’ve built in my grandmother’s honor has a purpose.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The biggest struggle actually came before Rose to Light ever existed learning how to deal with my own grief. After my grandmother died, I stayed almost completely silent about her passing for nearly two years. I didn’t know how to process what had happened, and I felt incredibly alone. I carried a lot of guilt and constantly replayed the “what ifs” in my head—What if I had called more? What if I had texted her back more often? What if I had visited more? Eventually, holding all of that inside became too much, and I had to learn how to actually face my grief.

Journaling became a huge part of that process. Writing gave me somewhere to put the feelings I couldn’t say out loud, but it also helped me understand grief on a deeper level. One of the hardest things I had to work toward was accepting that I could not go back and change what happened. I could love my grandmother, miss her, and wish things had been different without carrying the responsibility for the decision she made.

Once Rose to Light began, another challenge was figuring out exactly what I wanted it to be. Because I lost my grandmother to suicide, grief support and suicide prevention are deeply connected in my story. For a while, I felt like I needed to fit Rose to Light into one specific category, but I realized that grief education, prevention, mental health advocacy, and finding purpose after loss can all exist together.

That journey is a huge part of why I created Rose to Light. I never want to tell another teenager how to grieve, because everyone’s experience is different. I want to give them tools to navigate their own grief, work through the emotions and questions that can come with loss, and eventually begin finding their own light and purpose again.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Rose to Light is a youth-focused nonprofit dedicated to helping teens navigate grief, understand their emotions, develop healthy ways to cope, and ultimately find light and purpose after loss. The organization was created from my own experience with grief, which is why everything we do is built with young people in mind. I never wanted Rose to Light to feel clinical or intimidating. I wanted it to feel like something a teenager would actually want to use, engage with, and see themselves in.

One of the resources I am most proud of is the Rose to Light journaling app, which is completely free to use. I know firsthand how difficult it can be to put grief into words, so the app is designed to make that first step easier. Rather than expecting someone to immediately explain everything they are feeling, it gives teens a private space to check in with themselves, journal, reflect, and begin processing their emotions at their own pace.

Education is another major part of our work. Through social media, community outreach, and programs like Bloom Out Loud, Rose to Light creates approachable content surrounding grief, mental health, healthy coping, and suicide prevention. I want teenagers to understand that grief is not one-size-fits-all. There are so many ways loss can affect a person, and there are also many healthy ways to process it.

I have also expanded Rose to Light into apparel, including T-shirts, hoodies, and crewnecks. The clothing carries messages connected to the mission, including the idea of going from grief to light. To me, the apparel is more than merchandise it gives people a way to carry the message with them and can help make conversations about grief and mental health feel less uncomfortable or hidden. The ultimate inspiration for the apparel was one of my grandmothers favorite brands, oversized with big graphics and a little funky and different and that is something I want to carry into my line!

What I believe sets Rose to Light apart is that it was created by a teenager, for teenagers, from lived experience. I’m not looking at teen grief from the outside. I know what it feels like to be young and suddenly have to navigate a loss you never imagined facing. At the same time, I recognize that my experience will never be identical to someone else’s, which is why the goal is not to tell teens how to grieve. It is to give them tools, education, community, and different places to begin.

Because my grandmother died by suicide, suicide prevention is also deeply connected to the mission of Rose to Light. I want to be part of creating more open conversations around mental health while also recognizing and supporting the people who continue living with the grief that follows a loss.

More than anything, I want people to know that Rose to Light is about hope without minimizing grief. Finding your light does not mean forgetting the person you lost or pretending the pain never existed. It means learning how to carry their memory forward while continuing to grow, heal, and discover purpose in your own life.
That is what from grief to light means to me, and it is what I hope Rose to Light can help other young people discover for themselves.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
One of the biggest resources in my life is honestly music. I listen to a little bit of everything, and what I choose usually depends on my mood. Some of my favorite artists are Tate McRae, Lizzy McAlpine, and Sabrina Carpenter, and when it comes to country music, I love Kelsea Ballerini, Riley Green, and Ella Langley. Music has always been something I can turn to, whether I need to process what I’m feeling, get motivated, or just have something playing in the background while I work.

Journaling is another huge one for me. It became especially important while I was learning how to navigate my own grief. Sometimes writing something down was much easier than trying to say it out loud, and it helped me understand what I was actually feeling instead of keeping everything in my head. That experience eventually became part of the inspiration behind the journaling aspect of Rose to Light.

I also spend a lot of time learning through social media, articles, and online resources, especially surrounding grief, mental health, and suicide prevention. I love hearing different perspectives and learning more about why people think, feel, and cope the way they do.

I don’t think there is one book, podcast, or app that has shaped me more than everything else. For me, it’s really a combination of music, writing, learning, and listening to other people’s stories that keeps me inspired and helps me continue growing both personally and through my work with Rose to Light.

Pricing:

• Rose to Light Journaling App — Free
• Rose to Light social media resources — Free
• Apparel — Pricing varies by item

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.berlynsharp.com
• Instagram: @berlynsharp @rose_to_light @missteenwestcoastintl2026
• Facebook: berlynsharp

Image Credits
First image (blue and white outfit) – the code creatives

all the rest – Stacie Lynn Larsen