Student works to impact, save lives

By Danielle Marsh | dmarsh1@flagler.edu

“I’m an advocate for pushing people to volunteer,” Flagler College senior Jenna Stinnett said.

Stinnett is involved in Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Betty Griffin House. She has had the same little brother for the past three years.

“He’s the reason I got involved at all,” Stinnett said of her little brother.

Stinnett was looking for a topic for her magazine writing class when she got drawn in with Betty Griffin House. Starting off as a sexual assault advocate, Stinnett received calls from women who were sexually assaulted, met victims at the hospital and stayed with them through the exam.

This volunteer position led to a job with Betty Griffin House, and now Stinnett is a shelter advocate, which requires her to run the crisis hotline and stay at the house with the women or work with the children.

“It’s rewarding to be giving people the information that they need,” Stinnett said. “Convincing a woman to come into the shelter, knowing that my convincing her got her out of a potentially lethal situation is stressful, but pretty rewarding.”