Mentoring memories: Spokane woman believes in time with girls as gift of giving
Gifts of time during childhood touched the life of Mary Carpenter, a Spokane clinic supervisor, author and single mom.
Carpenter, 45, has sought to carry those gifts forward in the past nine years by mentoring girls, ones met through her daughter’s school, counselors and church. Some children moved away, but today, she mentors seven girls ages 13 to 17 – many in low-income households or foster care.
She seeks to open up community experiences for them, including chances to meet at the park, write letters to residents of an assisted-living facility and see Christmas lights. She’s asked for tickets for them to attend theater and ballets and go to Green Bluff. During her childhood years in Michigan, a Christian author did the same for her and a few other girls in a ministry where her father worked.
“Nancy DeMoss (Wolgemuth), a writer and radio host, actually used to pull the girls from the ministry once a year and take us out to a play and to dinner, then she would have us sit down and think about, ‘What are our goals for the future?’ ” Carpenter said.
“She would really spend time talking and investing in our lives. That made such an impact on me, and I thought, someday I want to do that. She was a great role model.”
Alongside that, her parents, Kenneth and Rachel Carpenter, have long served as role models in service, sacrifice and giving, she said. They’ve been volunteer chaplains at Union Gospel Mission, served with Hospice and helped neighbors and others through church. Carpenter credits the domino effect of giving rather than anything she’s done.
“I think every one of us in life has had someone speak kind words to provide encouragement at a crucial moment,” she said.
Carpenter moved to Spokane from South Carolina nine years ago to be near family. Her daughter started school at South Pines Elementary, where Carpenter volunteered and started asking about any families or children who were struggling. Today, she said such needs often find her, and she’s now able to give more.
Her daily job is as a supervisor at the Spokane Teaching Health Clinic helping to oversee staff and do training. With a background in psychology and managing, she previously worked for Hospice as volunteer coordinator and manager. At the clinic, she’s part of a leadership team for the facility that has family medicine, internal medicine, a psychiatry residency, infectious disease doctors and an OB clinic.
As an author, she’s also among artists selected in the 2021 Spokane Arts Grant Awards, specifically a $10,000 grant for a book and teaching project. Carpenter is helping create “Ponies in the Park,” a picture book with a story written by her and illustrated by artist, author and former educator Mary Pat Kanaley. The book, teaching kids about the sculptures and history of Riverfront Park, is expected by April 1 with preorders at poniesinthepark.com.
“It’s a little sweet story about how moonlight mixed with magic dust allows the Carrousel and all the art in the park to come to life,” Carpenter said. “It’s a magical story that teaches.”
She said part of the grant money will go toward giving one book to every second-grade school teacher in the region, and then also one book will go to every elementary school library to help teach kids and get them interested in art and history in Spokane.
On many trips to Riverfront Park over the years with her daughter, and also bringing many of the girls she’s mentored, Carpenter liked to make up stories with them based on those visits. That helped inspire the book, she said, but Carpenter also gives a nod to her father.
“It was the many hours he spent making up stories with me that developed my interest and ability to create stories,” she said. “He used to start a story and leave it at a certain place and then have me continue. We would trade on and off in this process. This was a tradition that I also continued with my daughter and sometimes the girls I mentored, when they were young, of course.
“My daughter and I, as well as my sweet girls, have spent many hours adventuring in Riverfront Park over the years. We have many sweet memories of ice-skating, riding the carousel, picnicking and exploring that beautiful park. Riverfront holds some very fond memories for me.”
She also has a story about the significance of giving at Christmas when she was a child. At that early nonprofit, Life Action Ministries, where her dad and Wolgemuth held roles, Carpenter’s family lived off support donated to them by giving people, she said. One Christmas when she was about 7, the family had a tight budget for gifts.
“My parents knew of a family who had some pressing needs, and they were struggling just to cover the basics,” Carpenter said. “We gathered together as a family, and my parents shared the other family’s need.”
Her parents wanted everyone in the family to consider whether to spend their own budget for gifts or to use that money on the other family for Christmas. Each family member was allowed to weigh in because if they decided to help, all in the Carpenter household would sacrifice.
“The decision was unanimous. We would do without Christmas to meet the other family’s needs. Well, only by giving can you receive more than you already have.
“We anonymously gave to this family to meet their needs, but in an amazing turn of events, God provided Christmas for us, too. Much to our amazement, we were blessed with a surprise bag of gifts left on our doorstep. Someone had purchased gifts for each of us kids. We’ll never know who this sweet, giving person was who blessed us in this way.”
Carpenter said she’ll never forget the doll named Mandy with brown hair and a little yellow gingham dress in that Christmas bag, nor her excitement at God’s provision. It grew her faith and strengthened a desire to invest in the lives of others, she added.
Watching the unexpected power of that over the years, Carpenter said she is convinced there isn’t any greater joy in life than to give. “I think Winston Churchill said it best. ‘We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.’ ”