Jennifer Murphy was born in 1976 and raised in southern Vermont, where she attended public schools in Brattleboro. At an early age, she developed a keen interest in the arts and music, playing the flute for several years and honing her baton twirling skills. She enjoyed hiking and camping and raised several small pets in her backyard. Her real passion and talent, however, was reserved for dance and she became an accomplished ballet dancer performing on stage for over a decade throughout New England.
Jenn, as she was known to her family and friends, was a thoughtful and inquisitive young woman with an engaging personality. As she grew, Jenn developed deep compassion and generosity, traits that created an ever widening circle of friends to whom she was always faithful and supportive. As the youngest child in a family of four children, she was the pride and joy of her parents, three brothers, grandparents and an extended New England-based family.
Jennifer had a voracious appetite for reading and she excelled in her academic work. Her interest in world affairs and languages grew after a trip to central Africa in 1986 when she was ten years old and led to her later work as a committed human rights activist with Amnesty International. In the late 1980s, Jennifer took up long distance running as a way to improve her conditioning for her increasingly serious commitment to dance. In the Fall of 1991, as a high school freshman, she competed on her varsity running team and finished a phenomenal season as the Vermont State Girls Cross Country Champion.
Jennifer also had a particular interest in working with younger girls and her dance and academic mentoring helped many young women reach their artistic and physical potential.
Jenn died tragically in 1992 just shy of her 16th birthday. She had befriended a troubled young man who took her life and then his own. Although her life was sadly cut short at a very young age, Jenn had taken advantage of many opportunities to enrich her own life as well as the lives of many others. The Jennifer Murphy Fund was established in her memory to help create such opportunities for other young Vermont women, particularly those at risk or less advantaged.