GOOD DEEDS
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Friday, April 11, 2014
Silverdale boy gives away toys for kids in Oso BY SERAINE PAGE SPAGE@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Among the food packages delivered by a Bremerton couple to Oso was another special package. It was from a 5-year-old boy named Jordan Barrie who wanted to help too. Barrie, who loves to watch The Weather Channel, saw the mudslide photos and immediately wanted to help, his mother, Rika Barrie, said. Rika Barrie works with Ellen Wood at Fred Meyer, and told her coworker how her son wanted to help.
“It goes to show you can help at any age, whether you’re 75 or five,” said Ellen Wood of Barrie’s contribution. The evening of the mudslide, when Barrie called his mother to say goodnight — she closes at the store some nights — he told her of his plan: to donate his stuffed animals to the children impacted. “It would be really sad if all our stuff went away,” Jordan had told his mother over the phone. He also told her he wanted to give his “babies” away to other “children who are sad.” The five-year-old,
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familiar with donating his unused toys and clothes to Goodwill, grabbed the garbage bag his mother had given him and started tossing his stuffed animals in. Everything from his little brown dog to a bright green teddy bear went into the bag. His mother said she was shocked by her son’s generosity, and was even more surprised when he awoke that next morning and still hadn’t changed his mind. “It makes me proud to know he’s five, and he knows when bad things happen in the world, you do what you can to make it right,” she said.
“He just kept dumping them in there. He kept a handful of his favorites, but just about all of them went.” When Ellen Wood shared the story with a volunteer who took the bag of stuffed animals, Wood said the woman burst into tears. Just a few weeks after his good deed, and even as the adults talk around him about what he did and how nice it was, Jordan Barrie doesn’t seem to think what he did was all that amazing. When asked why he decided to share, he gave a simple enough answer: “Because.”
Contributed photo
Jordan Barrie poses with toys he donated to Oso victims.
Oso sees help from Bremerton BY SERAINE PAGE SPAGE@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
It didn’t take long for Ellen and Dennis Wood to fill up the back of their pickup truck with supplies to take to the Oso mudslide volunteers.
Chips, baked goods, bottled water, oranges and protein bars were packed into the Bremerton couple’s truck on March 31. The pair took the day to ferry over and drive up to the mudslide site. “Anybody can donate money.
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We decided to go get a bunch of stuff to bring it up to the volunteers and workers,” said Ellen Wood. “There were so many volunteers there.” The slide occurred along State Route 530 on March 22 and since then has claimed the lives of more than 30 people. The area was declared as a disaster site by President Obama on April 2. Shortly after the mudslide, Ellen heard from a friend who wanted to help and was making baked goods to be sent to the site. That’s when the Woods decided that they should be the ones to personally deliver the items to those working around the clock. She asked everyone she knew to donate food items for delivery. Even though she and her husband couldn’t physically help, she knew that workers and volunteers still need to be fed. Dennis Wood is also on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on-call list so he can help at a moment’s notice to relieve other workers. They brought the supplies
as far as they could. As far as possible meant the red brick Oso Fire Department. While they never saw the damage, the couple knew enough from the images on TV what was beyond the blockades and just around the bend. It took longer to load the car than it did for volunteers to unload it because of the sheer volume and organization of the departments, Ellen Wood said. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “It was so well orchestrated.” Several organizations have created ways for locals to donate. The Salvation Army, Red Cross, United Way and others are accepting monetary donations to assist those impacted by the mudslide. Boston’s Pizza and Deli has donated $5,192.25 to the Oso mudslide victims. Owners Don and Cheryl Stauff hosted the fund-raiser in memory of John Regelbrugge III, a Navy commander who perished in the mudslide. Regelbrugge III had served aboard aircraft carrier the USS John C. Stennis. Most recently, he was stationed at the Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Everett. Reactor M-division sailors from the USS John C. Stennis purchased nearly $400 in pizza during the fund-raiser.
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