Dec 11, 2016 5 min read

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Elaine Irish remembers a time during her childhood when her mother became aware of a homeless woman in their community who needed a coat. Her mother had just two coats – a trench coat and a heavy winter coat. She gave the woman her heavy winter coat.

Irish also remembers her father anonymously helping people financially, and how all the canning her mother did each summer filled the basement and came out throughout the winter not only for their family but for others in need.

Irish was paying attention, and today, as a 69-year-old retired special education teacher, is among the most active volunteers with the Salvation Army in Huntington. As a member of the Salvation Army Church congregation and Corps Sergeant Major with the organization, she teaches Sunday school to elementary children, plays the piano at some services, and teams up with husband, Michael, to plan the music. She also creates the bulletin, teaches a Bible lesson to children during the Family Night on Mondays and picks up food from local restaurants and coordinates meals at noon every Saturday, during an event called Showers of Blessing.

Michael Irish runs the sound system for the church and serves as chaplain for the men’s group, and the couple maintains flower beds planted in memory of his parents, Bruce and Leona Irish, out front of the building at 1227 3rd Ave.

Elaine is originally from Chesapeake, Ohio, where she lives today, saying she can’t believe God lets her live in a beautiful setting in the woods where she gets to see the trees and the wildlife on a daily basis. Before moving back home to care for family, she spent some years living out of state, mostly in Michigan and Ohio.

The Irishes’ service with the Salvation Army started years ago, when Elaine and Michael were both living and going to school in Wilmore, Kentucky. She was in seminary at the time.

“We thought we were going to be missionaries,” she said. They never did go live overseas, but she says looking back, they realize they’ve done a great deal of mission work right at home.

They started out as bell-ringers for the Salvation Army while they were in school, though Elaine says she doesn’t do that anymore for health reasons.

After that, they decided to both work during one summer break at a Salvation Army Summer Camp. She worked as the craft director. Then, when she and Michael had settled in Michigan, they discovered a Salvation Army church they liked.

They had been going to another church in the small town, but because it didn’t have much for their kids, they started participating in the Salvation Army’s weekday program for children, and then found themselves attending on Sundays as well.

“We joined the church and became soldiers in the Salvation Army,” she said. “In the Salvation Army, a soldier is expected to participate. You don’t just come to church. So we got busy doing things.”

The first Sunday they attended, she noticed the congregation had to sing a cappella because it had no musician to play. She offered to play the piano.

“I just walked up and said, ‘I can play,’ and they said, ‘We’ve been praying about that,”‘ she recalled.

She eventually got a paid position as an envoy assisting an officer there.

“When we moved back here, we did whatever needed to be done,” Irish said. Their two children are grown now. Their daughter, Manda Pascoe, lives in Pennsylvania and their son, Sean Irish, lives in Florida.

Elaine Irish said she’s not down at the Salvation Army every single day of the week, but she’s down there quite a bit, enough for another volunteer to say that, “If you’re going to follow Miss Elaine around, you need a pair of roller skates.”

She enjoys the Showers of Blessing lunch on Saturdays, which sometimes is food donated from Red Lobster or Bob Evans, and sometimes is food cooked up in their kitchen.

She invites any local restaurateurs who would like to donate unused food to contact the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army also stays busy providing food baskets, clothing and other support for people in need all year long. It assists fire victims when needed, and offers Monday night activities for families.

Along with her regular volunteer duties, Irish also has been relearning Spanish after taking it in school 40 years ago.

She’s befriended a woman from Mexico and her family. She said the woman was sitting in church one day, and Irish approached her and started chatting away in English before the woman said, in Spanish, “No English.”

“I stumbled through enough Spanish to welcome her and tell her my name,” Irish said.

Irish then bought herself an English-Spanish dictionary and has taken the family under her wing as much as she can, even going to doctors’ appointments to translate, taking the children to church when their mother has to work, and going out to eat with the family.

While they were eating out one night, Irish said they came across a high school Spanish teacher who, after meeting the Mexican woman, offered to help teach Spanish classes at the Salvation Army.

That was definitely a “God thing,” Irish said.

In all, the Salvation Army is “a picture of what I think the church ought to be,” she said. “We try to minister to the whole person, physically, spiritually, socially and emotionally.

“How can you meet somebody’s spiritual needs if they’re hungry?”