An April 5, 2024 memorial service, held at Clemson United Methodist Church, honored the life of Jean Tulli, who founded Helping Hands of Clemson as an emergency shelter and home for abused children, touching the lives of more than 8,500 children here in Pickens County through the years.

I remember the very first day of the very first journalism class I had, as a teenager at Clemson. Our journalism professor walked into the classroom and asked us students, “This is Engineering 101?”  He was just kidding. He was a great professor. He taught all of my journalism classes, and I highly respected him. And he looked like Ernest Hemingway.

At times, he would invite someone in to speak to us students, and we, from memory, would write, for a grade, about what the person spoke to us about. One of those he invited to speak was Jean Tulli, who worked in the Engineering Department at Clemson University and who had founded Helping Hands and had received a Jefferson Award. I can still see her, in my mind, standing at the podium in our classroom that day, sharing from her heart about Helping Hands.

Shortly after she visited our class, some of us journalism students decided to start a newsletter for Helping Hands. This was not for a grade but was something extra we wanted to do to try to assist Helping Hands in creating more awareness for the organization. We wrote articles for each issue, and the printed newsletter, entirely about the Helping Hands home and the Helping Hands Thrift Shop, was distributed free in the community. After we graduated, other journalism students after us continued with the newsletter. That’s what Jean told me when I reconnected with her when I was the Editor of The Pickens Sentinel.

A few years ago, Jean retired as Director of Helping Hands, and one of her daughters, Jennifer, became the Director. I toured Helping Hands’ new home, interviewed Jean and Jennifer, and took photographs, including of Jean and Jennifer, for two articles I wrote. Sadly, Jennifer died in 2020, six months after one of her sisters, another of Jean’s daughters, passed away.

And, now, Jean is gone.

What a remarkable lady, having touched the lives of so many children. And, if she had touched only one life, that would have been significant.

As one of her granddaughters read from scripture at the memorial service, from Matthew 25:35-40, Jesus said that, when you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto Him.