When the COVID-19 crisis erupted, Jeff Jahn (07C) and his award-winning team at DynamiX immediately began thinking about how they could help clients share good news in the midst of the pandemic. He also looked to his alma mater, quickly offering to develop free of charge a site that would do exactly that.
The result is www.AlwaysBerry.com, which launched in late April as a platform highlighting the many ways in which alumni and friends have responded positively to the global pandemic. The site features stories of service, messages of encouragement, and opportunities for members of the greater Berry community to share their own stories and offer support to the college’s neediest students – who have been hit so hard by the financial upheaval caused by the pandemic – through gifts to the Save a Student Scholarship.
“Our goal was to help good news find a voice,” Jahn explained of Always Berry and similar sites developed pro bono by the DynamiX team. “Social media and the news tend to focus on the negative stories. We wanted to help Berry and other organizations shine a light on the positive things that are happening all around us right now.”
Always Berry puts the spotlight on people like Rebecca Land Segrest (02C), a nurse and faith leader in Rome who set out on Easter Sunday for hard-hit New York City, where she provided relief to health care workers at Columbia University Medical Center, part of New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
“As a traveling nurse, I have been in numerous situations where you don’t know what you’re getting into when you respond, but you go, because someone needs your help, praying that your training is enough,” she said.
While serving in New York, Segrest also continued in her role as missioner for the Northwest Georgia Canterbury Club through the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, holding virtual meetings with Berry students and those of other local colleges.
Be sure to visit www.AlwaysBerry.com to read more about Segrest and many other alumni and friends who embraced Martha Berry’s mission, “Not to be ministered unto, but to minister,” during COVID-19 and shared their stories with us. You also can learn about innovative twists such as Virtual Work Week, a new spin on Berry’s longstanding tradition that provided opportunities for alumni to serve in their communities instead of on campus.
