Volunteering is a way of life for Salvation Army helper

Carley Barrett is a soldier in the Salvation Army.

For more than 25 years, she has volunteered at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center through the Salvation Army and has logged more than 10,000 hours – keeping busy, making friends and doing what she feels is right.

She works in the hospital laundry, often sewing and mending lab coats or folding towels for surgery. She passes out the weekly Salvation Army literature. Barrett and her late husband, Bob, also used to make hot dogs and distribute them to the patients.

She said she doesn’t have much money, so to help donate to the hospital, she collects cardboard from local bakeries and hauls it in her pickup to recycle. The money she gets goes directly to the hospital.

Her neighbors don’t think of her as a soldier, however. They think of her as Grandma.

The 85-year-old woman moved into her Northwest neighborhood house in 1969 and immediately started working to help her neighbors.

She mowed the lawns of her older neighbors and started to make friends. These days she just mows her own lawn, but neighbor Karen Svenvold, 66, said that Barrett picked up her pine needles for her just last week.

Svenvold said she decided to nominate Barrett as a Good Neighbor because she was trying to figure out a way to pay tribute to the woman who brought her food and comfort when Svenvold was fighting breast cancer a few years ago.

“She needs to be recognized,” Svenvold said.

Barrett also served as a surrogate grandma to Svenvold’s son, Ryan, when he was growing up in the neighborhood. Ryan, 24, is a Marine who has served two tours of duty in Iraq.

While he was serving overseas, she made fudge and sent it over to him.

Someone told her that he said, “Nobody can make fudge like Grandma Carley.”

“She’s just my son’s grandma,” Svenvold said.

Svenvold said Barrett takes care of the neighbors’ cats when they go on vacation. She took Svenvold’s garbage out to the street when she was sick. Barrett takes her on Sunday evenings to the Salvation Army Church where Barrett has been a member for over 40 years and will come early to fold the church programs.

Barrett also has a garden and shares her tomatoes, zucchinis and more with the neighborhood.

“I didn’t want for fresh vegetables this summer,” Svenvold said.

Svenvold, who has been Grandma Carley’s neighbor since 1993, feels that she has never had a neighbor like her. She has lived in neighborhoods where the people who lived near her may have known her name, but she never had a neighbor go out of her way to be helpful and friendly.

“She’s just a wonderful, wonderful lady,” Svenvold said.

Wendy Adams has known Grandma Carley for almost 30 years, and was Barrett’s first surrogate granddaughter.

Adams’ family invites Barrett to Thanksgiving every year and she said the two talk every other day. Barrett takes her to church on Sunday evenings as well.

Although Adams lives a little farther away from Barrett, she has seen what she does for her neighbors and her own family. She also said that Barrett inspires her to be a good neighbor.

“She would be the best neighbor anybody could have,” Adams said.

Barrett’s faith is apparent in whatever she does. She feels that a good neighbor is a Christian willing to share and visit.

“I do it because it’s something I enjoy doing,” Barrett said. She added that being a good neighbor means that she will have good neighbors, too.

She said she has a special place in her heart for Lance, a little boy who lives down the street from her who is blind. He tells her often that she is his grandma.

“He is just a precious jewel,” she said.