Pictured from left to right: Board Secretary Jenny Berryhill, Director Jennifer Goodwin, and volunteer Donna Evans
The McClean Fletcher Center receives an average of 50 volunteers per school year, with each one contributing in important ways. These volunteers take on a range of services, such as providing dinner to the families before group sessions or facilitating those sessions for the different age groups. The welcoming smiles and open hearts of these volunteers are the life blood of our mission to serve these children and their families.
One such volunteer is Jenny Berryhill. She learned about the Center through her involvement with the Junior League of Jackson and has been volunteering here since 2011. After learning about the mission of the McClean Center, Jenny knew she had found her calling. Since that time, Jenny has served as a group session facilitator where she helps conduct sessions for the different age groups every two weeks throughout the school year and summer sessions, providing the children with therapeutic exercises that allow the children to healthily reflect and cope with their loss.
The importance of the Center’s work became clearer than ever to Jenny in March 2014, when she experienced the unexpected and devastating death of her mother. After spending some time healing, she was inspired to come back to volunteering in the fall of that same year as she realized how much she needed her own mother even as an adult. Jenny realized that the children at the Center might feel that same yearning for their lost loved one. From her new perspective, she saw the impact a positive role model could have on children and adolescents also navigating the grief process.
“I never made it about me, but when I listened to Jennifer [Goodwin, Director of the Center,] talk during the sessions about the grief map, I was able to say ‘oh, I’m there, feeling that’ right along with the children. The sessions helped me in turn to understand my own grief,” Jenny said.
To Jenny, one of the most inspiring parts of the McClean Center is seeing the connections people make with each other. Both parents and children that attend the sessions tend to connect with one another and will often get together outside of the Center.
“People come to the session from all different backgrounds and with different stories, but find this common denominator of losing a loved one. You get to see them make that connection with each other and realize they aren’t alone in their grief.”
In 2019, Jennifer Goodwin asked Jenny to become part of the Advisory Board for the McClean Center. Jenny has served on the Board since then and now serves as Secretary. From her new role, she is able to see the bigger impact of the Center by recording how many families they served each year and by helping raise the funds needed to make the Center successful.
Part of serving on the Board includes helping conduct the Heartstrings Gala, the Center’s only fundraising event each year. Before serving on the Board, Jenny volunteered to work registration at the Gala and had attended as a guest several times. Now, she works to gather silent auction items and attract new attendees to the event.