Nancy Burns-Fusaro reports for The Sun in Westerly, Rhode Island:
The Rev. Jean Barry, a fierce advocate for the region’s homeless and hungry who helped change the way people think about poverty and was instrumental in transforming a small soup kitchen on Spruce Street into a comprehensive social services agency that tends to the needs of thousands each year, died [Feb. 18] at her home in Charlestown. She was 75.
Barry, the longtime executive director of the WARM Center of Westerly, was also an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church who served at a number of Rhode Island churches during her ministry. She also served as chaplain at Kent County Memorial Hospital in Warwick and as a clergy volunteer for female prisoners at the state’s Adult Correctional Institute.
A married mother of two, Barry once said she was drawn to social service through her religious training.
The Rev. Sunil Chandy, the Episcopal rector at Christ Church Westerly, said [Feb. 19] that the “ministry of the diaconate is to serve in God’s name.”
“She did this well,” said Chandy. “She was loved by many in our Diocese of Rhode Island.”
