Faces Of New Bedford #212: Jill Fearons

Meet Jill Fearons, 46-year-old director and founder of the Friends of Jack Foundation. Jill spent most of her professional life as a school teacher but as her family started growing, she stayed home to take care of the children.

Their fifth son, Jack, was born with a rare defeat in the brain stem, Chari Malformation, which caused him to randomly stop breathing. He was admitted in to Boston Children’s Hospital Outpatient program and that cause Jill to need to stay in Boston with him at all times. After seeing what her family endured during Jacks difficult time, she vowed to help other families that may not have had the resources she did. This started as an annual fundraiser, which went to fund Southcoast Pediatrics , helping families like her own.

As the years passed and the foundation formed, she began raising funds to start small initiatives through the Friends of Jack Foundation. One of those is the Teddy bear program, which ensures that any child who is triaged in an emergency room in the Southcoast, enters into social services, or visits a family member at the house of corrections, gets a teddy bear to help soften their visit. She also has the Super Hero Program, which gives kids a mask and a cape when they go into surgery, as it was something that helped Hack be brave. They’ve also partnered with Fun 107 and WBSM the Food for Tots campaign and is currently working to help start a program that would give those moving around in the foster program duffle bags, instead of the black trash bags there children are given.

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Faces of New Bedford is a project by Colton Simmons. If you are interested in booking a shoot or getting prints from the series email all inquiries to colton@coltonsimmons.com. Follow Colton on Instagram: https://instagram.com/simmonscolton

Read more of the Faces of New Bedford series here.