The McClean Fletcher Center is a place specifically designed for children and families who are working through the grieving process for someone they have lost. The center is a place where children can embrace grief and begin their journey through the healing process towards peace. In order to understand the mission and purpose behind the center, it is also important to know the story and legacy of the person that the center was named after, Ms. McClean Fletcher.
McClean Fletcher was a friend to everyone she came in contact with. She was a mentor to her friends, and a welcoming friend to strangers. Because of her love and kindness to those she was around, children often gravitated towards McClean. She desired to be a pediatrician because of the joy and happiness that kids often brought her.
In 1996, on a rainy day, McClean was killed in a car accident as she was traveling home from baby-sitting a close family friends who lived out-of-state. McClean was 19 years old, and loved by many. She exemplified the spirit and philosophy of The Center’s mission through her passion for life, her compassion for children, the gift of mentoring, and her intuitive ability to touch the hearts of those in need.
McClean was the daughter of Hospice Ministries’ Executive Director, John Fletcher, and his wife Sally. The McClean Center began as a vision of Kathy Woodliff’s, a licensed counselor and community volunteer. Kathy approached Hospice Ministries, Inc., because she knew of Hospice Ministries’ extensive experience with family grief services. As Mississippi’s largest community based provider of in-home and inpatient hospice and bereavement services, the addition of a grief center was a natural extension of Hospice Ministries’ mission to care of a family’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being.
Through the loss and grief of McClean Fletchers life, there was born the beginning of corporate and personal healing. Out of this loss, a positive and hopeful promise was gained. The McClean Center.