Habitat builder

Francis Garrett may be the Jack LaLane of Spokane.

At 87, Garrett dresses in jeans and a T-shirt, and stays healthy through hard work.

The retired engineer volunteers three days a week for Habitat for Humanity. He’s also a volunteer for the Community Emergency Response Team through COPS Northwest, and every Tuesday he can be found at the Second Harvest Food Bank boxing groceries for distribution centers.

“I want to be doing something,” Garrett said. “There have been very few times that I’ve had nothing to do.

“I don’t much like to take exercise on a stationary bike. I’d rather work for Habitat.

“It helps keep my belly flat,” Garreett said.

“He’s out on the building sites three days a week, doing hard construction,” said Anne Magner, a fellow Habitat volunteer. “He doesn’t get on roofs anymore, but you might see him up in the trusses.

“He’s hard to slow down. Right now he’s helping our licensed electrician, stringing wires and hanging boxes. He’s just got so much knowledge.”

Garrett has been a Habitat volunteer six years.

For his spirit and generosity, a group of Habitat volunteers is raising money to build a Habitat Home in Garrett’s honor. The plan is to start building in early spring.

A committee, the Friends of Garrett, or FOG, is raising $70,000 to make this home a reality. So far the group has raised $14,000.

Garrett, a modest Southern gentleman, is humbled by the project, but because he believes in the Habitat program, he’s OK with the attention. “It gives me a great feeling to give a hand up, not a handout.

“It’s a great program and provides houses for kids. If a child has a stable home base where they can feel safe and secure, that’s great,” Garrett said.

He likes the idea of sweat equity, by which the people who will be living in a Habitat house help build it.

Originally from Alabama, Garrett got a job at age 17 filing drawings with Chicago Bridge & Iron Co., where he later became an engineer. During his career he worked in Birmingham, Ala.; Johannesburg, South Africa; Memphis, Tenn.; Vohberg, Germany; and Manila.

When he retired at age 65, after 48 years with the company, his family moved to Spokane.

Why Spokane?

“We just figured we’d try the great Northwest,” said Garrett.

He and his wife, Peggy, were married 57 years. She died in 1995.

After his retirement, he purchased rental properties and kept busy maintaining them. He said he learned about construction by doing it.

During the Depression, people couldn’t afford to hire repairmen. If something broke, you fixed it.

In 2001, Garrett was honored as the United Way’s Volunteer of the Year in the senior category.

Also that year his neighbors nominated him in The Spokesman-Review’s Good Neighbor Contest. In the nomination letter, Richard Losh wrote, “Francis is a genuinely kind, caring, giving person. When harvesting fruit from his mini-orchard, for example, Francis will pick the fruit, clean it, then drive it to the Union Gospel Mission and donate it along with old clothing, etc.”

Dennis Magner, a retired teacher and FOG member said, “We have all absolutely fallen in love with the man. He gives so much for being 87 years old.

“He has the energy and the vitality that gives the rest of us hope. He’s the guy I want to be like, not only because of his age, but because of who he is and what he does.

“He can do anything, and his willingness to help others is genuine and truly amazing.”