The founding of the Berry Schools was inspired by Berry's desire to help the children of poor landowners and tenant farmers in Georgia who did not have access to quality education.
As a consequence of this desire, Martha Berry never married, and she devoted her life to developing the schools that would eventually become Berry College.

In the late 1890s, she constructed a small, whitewashed school on eighty-three acres of land given to her by her father and began to teach Sunday school classes to local children.
She also taught in an abandoned Possum Trot Church, which still stands on the Berry College campus.
The founding of the Berry Schools was inspired by Berry's desire to help the children of poor landowners and tenant farmers in Georgia who did not have access to quality education. As a consequence of this desire, Martha Berry never married, and she devoted her life to developing the schools that would eventually become Berry College.
In the late 1890s, she constructed a small, whitewashed school on eighty-three acres of land given to her by her father and began to teach Sunday school classes to local children. She also taught in an abandoned Possum Trot Church, which still stands on the Berry College campus.
Martha Berry