Kevin Dunn
To say that Kevin Dunn has a unique and persistent call to serve others would be an understatement. Growing up with teacher parents, he observed their service to students and neighbors through coaching sports teams, serving in their church, and taking care of family and neighbors. But Kevin’s unique call began to crystallize one day while sitting at a red light in LaGrange.
Kevin had just been laid off from a position he had held for twelve years, and he honestly did not know what he was going to do to fill his time while he looked for his next job. He knew he couldn’t sit around idly, but what should he do? Pondering this question prayerfully while stopped at a red light, a clear voice outside of himself said, “Go to hospice.” Kevin’s response to the voice was like all such call stories. He said, “No! No way can I go to hospice just to become attached to people who are dying. That would just break my heart. No! I cannot do this!”
And, as with all true call stories, shortly after this, Kevin was on the phone with West Georgia Hospice, asking, “How can I volunteer?” Before this, Kevin had had some success with singing. He had done some professional recordings and released two CDs. So, he knew that if singing was something that might be needed, he could certainly volunteer his voice in song. That was twenty years ago now.
In the beginning, Kevin took a small karaoke-type machine with him to accompany his voice. Then one day, eight years into this ministry, Kevin and his wife needed to swap cars for the day. He was already at Hospice when he realized that he had left the karaoke machine in his car. Oh well, Kevin went in and did what he had been doing for eight years, only this time without accompaniment. A staff member heard Kevin’s pure, clear voice and told him, “Today, I heard you using the gift God gave you.” He never used the music machine again.
When I asked Kevin if he would share some stories from his years of singing to patients at West Georgia Hospice, his eyes lit up, and he said, “Where do I even begin?”
Kevin told me about singing as a family gathered around the bed of their dying loved one. Even though the family had given their loved one permission to let go and die, the patient had lingered. While Kevin was singing, the family started embracing one another and smiling through their tears. When Kevin finished singing, the family embraced Kevin and told him that their loved one had released and died during the last verse of Amazing Grace.
Over the years, Kevin has built a nice repertoire of hymns and spiritual songs, some he had never heard before. When families ask him to sing a particular song, even if he has never heard it before, Kevin tries to learn it. When I asked Kevin to name one of his favorite songs that he had learned in this ministry, he did not hesitate. “Beulah Land,” he said.
Although he has not kept a record, Kevin thinks he has sung at over 200 funerals in his years of volunteering with West Georgia Hospice. One family that asked him to sing at a funeral positioned him in a place that was above and out of sight from the congregation. They wanted the worshippers to experience the song in much the same way they had experienced when he sang from outside the room to their loved one. He remembered this as a very powerful experience.
Then there was the time over six years ago when Kevin’s wife, Deborah, had a breast cancer recurrence that had metastasized to her liver. “She had fought so hard through the treatments and illness of breast cancer, and then it returned with a vengeance.” After a courageous battle, the day came when the doctors told Kevin and Deborah that she could best be served by in-patient hospice care. Kevin was distraught. He prayed to God as only a heartbroken husband can pray. “God, if I have ever been faithful to you anywhere, surely it has been here in hospice. Please don’t tell me that my wife is going to have to die there too.”
Kevin said that looking back, he thought his years of volunteering at Hospice had, unbeknownst to him, really prepared him for Deborah’s last days there. He had stood with so many families saying their final goodbyes. Now, he understood more completely his true calling to hospice work.
These days, in addition to volunteering at West Georgia Hospice, Kevin is a full-time single parent and owns a digital advertising and marketing company. The name of his business is Dunn4U Advertising. Kevin said when a marketing friend suggested this name for his business, he thought it was corny. Then the more he thought about it, he saw that this was precisely the way he wanted his business, his singing ministry, and his life to be. Done for You. The you in the equation being God.