For almost two decades now, Sheri Kendrick has been a professional photographer. However in the last few years, Kendrick has started working for Little Light of Mine, which is a non-profit organization that serves the Tampa Bay area of Florida.
"I was called in a few times by families who had children on hospice care and they wanted to get photographs before their child passed away," Kendrick told TODAY Parents. "That opened up a new awareness for me about how I have two healthy children, and the photographs I have of them growing up are extraordinarily precious to me. When you add on the threat that you're going to lose your child, those photographs just become priceless," she added.
She talks about her original plan which was to volunteer for only a few hours per week, capturing images of children with physical handicaps, terminal illnesses, and other life-limiting conditions. However, when she started serving these families, Kendrick did see that the need was even greater than she realized.
Amazing local organization helping families at their most vulnerable times, Little Light Of Mine Sheri Kendrick https://t.co/haBDQaagme
— Bacchus For Charity (@BacchusCharity) June 17, 2016
Little Light of Mine was born three years ago. Kendrick has created a team of volunteer photographers who regularly visit palliative care units to take photos of dying children. Sometimes, the team schedules sessions in local parks with families of children who are undergoing treatment for a terminal illness. At the end of June, the non-profit team will launch a studio where families and kids who are undergoing outpatient treatment can actually have photos taken in an indoor environment.
Kendrick further said the most emotional shoots were those that happen when a child's life is coming to an end in a hospital setting. "A lot of the time, these families are making the decision of whether or not to keep their child on life support," said Kendrick. "A lot of these children have never left the hospital, so their family has never seen them without tape on their face and without tubes all over...families really want a photograph of their child's face without any of the tubes, so I have been called on days when they are actually disconnecting them from life support to document the day their child passes. Those are the most severe end of the spectrum for us," she concluded.
