When Leigh Jenks received her Master’s in Music Therapy from Shenandoah University, she launched the Blue Ridge Hospice Music Therapy program, and it's the only job she’s ever known. She began singing for an audience of one – from neonatal intensive care units to the homes of the elderly at the end of their days – and has never looked back. As she told a fundraiser in Winchester recently, she has “been using a patient's preferred music to accomplish physical, social, emotional, and spiritual goals for 249 months. 1083 weeks, 7580 days. 181,913 hours 10 914,880 minutes and 654,889,100 seconds,” one song at a time.
Her renditions range from old time hymns like “It is Well With My Soul,” to “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille,” and everything in between. Along with a dozen songs she performed, she shared a few recorded testimonials from adoring family members. Said one, “My wife has had Alzheimer's since 2015. She'd been bedridden almost a year.... We got to picking songs out. And I remember what was our song when we got married. It was ‘A Thousand Stars.’ I told Leigh about it and she found it.” When his wife heard the song, “she really lightened up. I know she looks forward to hear Leigh come to sing for her. She may not smile all day, but when Leigh gets here, she finds a smile and that brightens all our days. It's a blessing to her and to me and I have sure appreciated it.”
For more information or to support this cause, visit brhsopice.org.
