Couple Leaves Legacy By Helping Open Counseling Center

By Stephanie N. Grimoldby

When Pastor Ana Lugo asked, “What would you do if you could create a legacy?”, Jeannie Ingram of Nashville didn’t think about the question hypothetically.

She came up with an answer — “I guess I’d build a counseling center” — and spent an entire rainy weekend in October 2021 putting together documents about how such a center potentially could be housed in her church, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Nashville.

At the time, the church offices were occupied by a rent-paying preschool, so Ingram — a licensed professional counselor — had to put her dreams on hold.

But months later, the preschool announced it would move out in May 2022. Holy Trinity’s pastor, Chris Smith, told Jeannie, “I think we’re going to light a fire under this idea now,” Ingram recalled. “[He asked], ‘Is this still feeling like your legacy?’ … I was really, really excited about doing this.”

Ingram and her spouse, Carolyn Akland, had followed up with Lugo, the ELCA Foundation’s regional gift planner for the Florida-Bahamas and Southeastern Synods, to learn more about legacy gifts.

Lugo, in turn, helped the couple draw up a named endowment to benefit the church in perpetuity, which would in turn financially benefit the counseling center.

“When Carolyn and Jeannie shared this with me, I was literally blown away, because this story shows it’s not just about leaving a monetary legacy,” said Lugo. “Legacy is also about ministry, what ministries you are going to be able to sustain and bless with what you’re doing today.”

Smith pulled together a working task force of church members, and the group met with an attorney, built a website, applied for 501c3 nonprofit papers, and more.

Then, Southeastern Synod Bishop Kevin Strickland (who had married Ingram and Akland in 2013), visited.

“He asked, ‘Could you use money?’” Ingram said. “He had recently had to close a church, and he had designated the proceeds to go to sustainable missions in churches. He was able to give us some seed money. That allowed us to flesh out the plan a little more as well as make necessary improvements to show the office spaces to clinicians who would become contract therapists there.”

On Oct. 2, Tapestries Counseling Center was dedicated, with Strickland in attendance. “It takes a lot of trust to talk to someone like Pastor Lugo and share everything you have from a financial perspective,” Akland said. “She has inspired that trust, but I think being part of a Lutheran church and the ELCA and having had so many former experiences with pastors and members who have shown integrity in every step has laid the groundwork for me to listen and to trust that this can be.”