Charlene Burditt is 82 years old. When told she looks much younger, she giggles like a schoolgirl. In fact, her memories of being a schoolgirl are still razor sharp. And there is one memory, in particular, that she will never forget. 

Charlene was just a young girl when she and a friend went to a fair in Missouri. The next thing she knew, a tornado struck. She was knocked to the ground and doesn’t remember much else — except that right after the storm, The Salvation Army was there.  “Somebody rescued me out of the blue. They were just there helping everyone. I never forgot it,” she says.

Little did Charlene know that The Salvation Army would be there to help ‘rescue’ her during other storms in her life. One time, when she was living in a four family home in a small town in Missouri, someone at the store told her that her house was on fire. “I put my groceries down and started running. And when I got there, everything was burned up,” she recalls. But once again, The Salvation Army arrived on the scene to help. Charlene was given vouchers for food and a light gray blanket with a pink stripe across it.

“I can still picture that blanket. I kept it until I wore it thin,” she says.

Years later, after Charlene had a son, a flood ruined the items in her basement. Again, The Salvation Army returned and helped replace some of what she lost. Charlene says she just can’t believe how they were always there to help. “I was a single mother and had numerous jobs and didn’t want to ask for help, but they were always there!” she exclaims, amazed.

Family was always important to Charlene, so when her only son died at age 42 from leukemia, she “became very sad. She had lost touch with one of her brothers after he went into the Navy. In fact, it had been 50 years since she saw him last. So she again turned to those who had somehow always been there for her: The Salvation Army. And they found him! “I stood in my kitchen and cried like a baby when they told me they found where he was living. That just blew me over!” she says. Reuniting with her brother was nothing less than God’s work, she says.

To this day, The Salvation Army has been there for Charlene and others like her who need help — even as recently as this winter when record snowfall left her housebound for a while. Staff from The Salvation Army came by to give Charlene and her neighbor food.

At every turn, The Salvation Army has been there for hurting neighbors like Charlene. Looking back, Charlene says there’s one important lesson she tells everyone. And it’s this: “Give to help others as much as you can.  Because you never know when you will need it!”

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