Love Your Hood

Jen McClung

Co-founder + Creative Director

Who Jen Helps

Jen is a behind the scenes gal and deeply involved in the vision and all things marketing related for our company. That’s marketing, not sales — you can tell the difference by how long it takes her to answer her phone! She loves creating tools to help our team put their best foot forward.

Jen's Story

Raised in Illinois, Jen started taking summer vacations with her family to Steamboat Springs while in middle school. It was then that she knew Colorado would someday become home. She first made a stop in Madison, Wisconsin to study zoology and business, play some hockey, and become a proud Badger alumna.

Trading veterinary studies for a dog named Bentley, Jen’s venture to Colorado began in 2005. She soaked up everything the state had to offer, filling her time with camping, hiking, snowboarding, more hockey, and lots and lots of running. A few years later, Mark entered their lives. In 2011, Mark and Jen married in the backyard of the home they bought in the San Rafael Historic District of Denver’s Five Points neighborhood. Entrepreneurial at heart, they longed for a business they could build together. On the heels of the news that their first child was on the way, the couple started a real estate company together with Jen’s mom Deb, who had recently relocated to Colorado.

Since beginning their business, God nudged Mark and Jen to align their values and vision with their work through the second greatest commandment: love your neighbor. From there, Love Your Hood was born. 

In the years since, Mark and Jen have grown to a family of six, completed yet another massive home renovation, and continued to find ways to serve their clients, neighbors, and the community beyond!

Q+A with Jen

We sat down with Jen to find out what makes her tick:

I love creating things from scratch. Whether it’s designing a new marketing piece, re-branding a company, or building a business from the ground up, I love the creative potential within the adventure. But doing this by myself, wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling or successful. I love how our complementary skills can come together to do great things!

San Rafael (in Five Points) has been our home since 2010. Mark and I wanted to get involved with our neighborhood, however we could, and first heard about our neighborhood organization an entire year after moving in. I wanted to help others more easily connect so I started the OSRNO Facebook group and later on became a part of the board’s communication committee, and helped create our email blasts and our neighborhood’s first website.

We also renovated our front patio into a usable seating space so we can spend time out front and meet our neighbors more regularly. It’s amazing how many more neighbors you can chat with just by being out there!

On the opposite side of our lot is our alley. The great thing about alleys is that they make for a friendly meeting place in the front of the house. The flip-side is that alleys quickly become neglected and full of trash. To help with this, our family has regularly organized alley clean-ups with our neighbors and installed a basketball hoop to share with others. 

The three R’s… running, relationships, and religion (and not in that order). My faith is paramount to who I am and everything I do in life. My life is so much richer because of my family & dear friendsRunning is one of my favorite outlets for staying active, sneaking in time for podcasts, and filling my introvert tank.

This photo is at Union Station looking down 17th Street. Before we moved to Five Points, Mark and I lived in the building on the left side of this photo. He proposed to me in front of the building on the right, on Christmas Eve 2010 on our way home from a snowy walk with our beloved golden retriever Bentley. While Union Station has become a popular place over the last few years during its transformation, it will always have a special place in our family history!

Along with my role at Love Your Hood, I’m also raising and homeschooling our four kids. I could easily focus on that full-time and then some!

If I had to look for different paid work, I’d go back to helping people get organized. Before we started Love Your Hood, I used to have a professional organizing business and loved it!

love dark chocolate. I have a special bin for it in our pantry and even stash a little in my nightstand. At one point, our then two-year-old caught onto my hiding spots and took it upon himself to make his own stash in a place I’d never look — on the side of the toilet. Touché!

Who Jen Supports

Some of Jen’s favorite organizations to support. Check ’em out!

Looking to Connect?

Have a marketing question? Jen is all ears.

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