Margret Henley is the kind of person who just never stops.
She never stops moving. She never stops helping. She never stops giving to those who need and deserve it most. Those who know her best describe her as caring and altruistic, and undoubtedly, unabashedly … well, busy.
It’s the kind of busy her daughter, Connie Holt, said sometimes makes it hard to spend much time together but ultimately makes Holt proud of the work her mother puts in to helping the community around her.
“It seems like she’s always, constantly, somebody’s coming over; she has to go meet somebody to get something, or somebody’s bringing something over or coming over to work or whatever,” Holt said. “So she has to be there to meet them and do that or go pick up something, or go deliver something and go, go, go. … I would guess that she just likes to stay busy, and she likes to help people. She’s just a caring person and wants to do what she can to help people.”
It shows in the work she does. Henley spends time volunteering to help a number of local initiatives, including the New-To-You mission in Benton, a consignment shop and outreach organization for those in need operated by the United Methodist Cooperative Ministry of Marshall County. Henley also spends time working with local kids and youth volunteer groups, guiding them in their community service projects. Despite a natural tendency to shy from the spotlight, her efforts within the community have brought her to the forefront of its attention. Holt said she rarely encounters someone who upon discovering who she is doesn’t immediately recognize her mother.
“I’ve had numerous people when they – some people know that she’s my mom … and some people don’t, but when they find out … they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s wonderful. She’s so great, I just love your mom,’” Holt said. “…When I tell somebody who my mom is, they’ll be like ‘Oh, I love her, she’s great.’”
It’s no wonder. In addition to her work within the New-To-You Mission and local youth, Henley visits residents of The Stilley House Assisted Living Facility each month. She conducts activities with those residents, Holt said, including making cards and greetings for soldiers as part of her work with the Hugs Project. She’s also a regular member of Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church, where she assists in church activities, meals and outreach efforts, including working to provide baby supplies to local mothers and families who need assistance. Fellow churchgoer Hannah Sego said Henley was selfless and caring, not just in thought but in practice.
“She’s always available, and she’s busy all the time doing something,” Sego said. “… She’s just doing something all the time. She’s a very giving person. She has health problems, but she doesn’t let that bother her. She just continues to do what she can. She’s very caring and concerned and just lends her hand for so many different things.
“… To me, it’s beyond what a lot of us do,” Sego added.
Fellow volunteer and Hugs Project of Western Kentucky Founder Gayron Ferguson couldn’t agree more. Ferguson said Henley fit the example of a godly person with each day, not just speaking her faith but living it. It’s that faith that he said he feels is a cornerstone of who she is and why she does all she does.
“There’s a lot of people who simply go to church, they profess a religion but they don’t really live by it,” Ferguson said. “You know, they don’t do the things that the Bible says is expected of them. She lives her faith. Every thing she does is based on what’s right, not what’s convenient. … She actually lives that policy. She tries to be the best person that she can be, and not because she’s trying to gain popularity or to be noticed. She does it because she honestly feels that it’s the right thing to do.”
That work includes volunteering with the Hugs Project, which seeks to provide soldiers stationed away from home with care packages. The group collects travel sized items such as personal care, books, magazines, snacks and other items to send to soldiers to show them that residents support them and care about them at home. Henley is a frequent group volunteer, and one on whom Ferguson has come to depend and love like family.
“There’s so many things that she does and then she throws the credit on someone else,” Ferguson said. “That’s one of the things that makes her so special. … (She’s) very humble. There’s nothing arrogant about her, nothing arrogant at all about her. Like I said, she’s not a show. She’s not doing it for a show.”
While Henley has plenty to keep her busy, her most involved effort comes in the work she does for children as the director of Bags of Love, an organization devoted to supplying bags filled with basic necessities and items of comfort – such as a toy and blanket – for children removed from their homes in crisis situations, be they as the result of abuse or neglect, fire or natural disaster.
Holt said it hadn’t started as her mother’s baby, but quickly became such. Henley offered her late husband’s workshop as a place where the group could work and keep supplies it collected and made in the effort to a friend who had started the organization in Marshall County. It was supposed to be a temporary situation. That was about 10 years ago, and Henley still uses the shop and now runs the charity.
“I think it’s great that she is so caring and so involved in her community,” Holt said. “The community and caring about the people. The church, the kids with Bags of Love, just caring about everyone.”
She wouldn’t have it any other way. Ferguson said Henley makes it her life to help the deserving. Many times, he said he’d seen Henley come to the aid of those outside the scope of a volunteer organization, just on a basic, personal level. While he said she’s not naive in the nature of some, those who truly need it can always count on Henley to do what she can to alleviate whatever struggle they face.
“I know she’s paid electric bills for people to keep their lights on,” Ferguson said. “People that have gotten their final notice: ‘Your electricity will be turned off by such and such date.’ And she’ll pay it to keep their electricity from getting turned off.”
She does it out of a true desire to help in any way she can, he said, and out of love. Caring and loving, he – and all those who spoke to her character – said were qualities that she exhibits in spades. Henley, Ferguson said, inspires friendship, because she herself is a true friend to others.
“It’s easy to be friends with her because she is a friend to other people,” he said. “A lot of people want friends, but they’re not friends to people. They want the benefit of having friends, but they … are themselves not the kind of friend they want other people to be to them. She’s the person that is a friend, and because she is a friend, she becomes your friend.
“She’s the kind of person that we should all be,” Ferguson added. “To me, that’s the biggest compliment I can give her is that she’s the type of person we all need to be.”