Richard Dillman’s decision to close Jenn’s House back in February was, like many tough decisions, bittersweet. On the one hand, it was the end of a major chapter in Dillman and his family’s life.
But on the other, it provided an opportunity to honor his late daughter and wife in perpetuity.
Dillman sold the Jenn’s House home at the beginning of 2021, ending the 20-year run at the house in Emmaus where thousands of people from out of town stayed while a loved one was in a nearby hospital. The Jenn’s House organization started in 1991, but the Emmaus site was opened in 2000. The previous location was in Allentown, and the Dillmans also opened a second one in Fountain Hill in 2010 that was open for nine years.
With some of the money Dillman recouped in selling the house as well as a charity auction for the house’s belongings, he was able to start a scholarship endowment at the St. Luke’s School of Nursing in honor of his daughter, Jenn, who died in a charter bus accident in 1991, and dedicated to his wife, Patricia, with whom he operated Jenn’s House until her death in 2017.
The $60,000 donated to St. Luke’s was just a fraction of the money that was raised — the rest was sent to other causes, including the Ronald McDonald House in Hershey, where the Dillmans stayed while Jenn was in the hospital before her death.
But the scholarship endowment is something that will go towards helping the community the Dillmans served with Jenn’s House through a contribution to the next generation of nurses that are so instrumental in saving lives. “It’s a name that will be on the wall and will hopefully be recognized with much pride and satisfaction that the school of nursing can continue their education,” Dillman said.
Doing this kind of life-saving work runs in the family. Both Dillman’s wife and mother were nurses, and his son, Brian, works at St. Luke’s in the biomedical engineering department.
Even the sale of the home wound up invoking the spirit of Jenn’s House. Dillman sold the home to a family he later found out were a family of refugees seeking asylum in the United States. In the months since they bought the house, Dillman has become close with the family. “I visit them occasionally,” he said. “They invite me to different functions. It’s so gratifying for me to see how happy an outsider coming into this country is and so grateful for what they have from Jenn’s House.”
The scholarship endowment is a way for Jenn and the Dillman family’s legacy to live on in some way in the Lehigh Valley medical community.
Other proceeds from the house sale went to agencies that touched Dillman’s family in the past. Dillman’s focus in deciding where to donate was simply “how can we help others?” So, he said, it was easy to choose to donate to the Hershey Ronald McDonald House, where his family stayed during Jenn’s hospitalization, and the Gift of Life Donor Program in Philadelphia, which brought Jenn’s organs to those who needed them.
“Did they help us? They did,” Dillman said. “Did they provide some kind of relief to us? They did.”
Donations also went to the Salisbury Township School District, where Jenn was a student at the time of the accident, the Mercy School for Special Learning, the Lehigh Valley Health Network’s Hackerman-Patz House and the Lehigh Valley Health Network’s Cancer Center.
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Connor Lagore may be reached at clagore@njadvancemedia.com.
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Jenn’s House leaves legacy at St. Luke’s, elsewhere after closing operation - lehighvalleylive.com
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