It's common for friends to get together on a Saturday afternoon to share in some homemade food and fire up the grill. It's a familiar and friendly scene, but the cost to join this group is high.

They are people who never would have gotten together had it not been for the unimaginable. And now they can't imagine surviving it without each other.

Families and Friends of Violent Crime Victims is a group that offers people to listen and hands to hold when no one else can possibly understand.

These are the survivors behind the statistics - the people caught up in the violent crimes that you've seen in the news and those you haven't.

Ten-year-old Brian was murdered while on a family camping trip. It took Brian's sister, Kimala, years to accept help from the group, but now she's able to help others.

"If you haven't been there and walked in those shoes," she says, "it's hard to identify with that. And so as advocates for Families and Friends, we are able to say 'You know what, I can understand. I've been in similar shoes like that.'"

Lola Linstad co-founded Families and Friends in 1975 when her daughter, Vonnie, was abducted and murdered. It was a time when serial killer Ted Bundy was preying on young women. Several local girls were missing. Lola asked a friend how other families coped.

They then started calling the parents of missing girls, inviting them to meet. Thus the program was born of grieving mothers in a church basement 30-plus years ago.

Today, the group bands together to change laws, fight for victim's rights and find strength in each other.