BANGOR, Maine — Capt. Jeffrey Kirk, who recently took over the local Salvation Army chapter with his wife, Capt. Rebecca Kirk, remembers playing in the offices he now occupies when he was a child because his parents once held the same post.
“I used to play in [staff member Mary MacKay’s] office when I was 6 and now my 6-year-old plays in her office,” Jeffrey Kirk said, recalling the time from 1986 to 1993 when his parents, Frank and Bonnie Kirk, were leaders in Bangor.
“They’re now both majors,” he said of his parents, who continued to serve with The Salvation Army after leaving Bangor and are planning to retire in October in Alfred, Maine.
Jeffrey Kirk is from Brewer and Rebecca Kirk is from Winsted, Connecticut. The two met as youths at Camp Sebago, a Salvation Army summer camp in Standish.
The Kirks replace Capt. Timothy Clark and his wife, Capt. Evelyn Clark, who came to Bangor in 2010 after serving six years in Estonia. The Clarks have decided to return to the nation in the Baltic region of Northern Europe to minister.
The Kirks, who are both 33, arrived in Bangor after serving five years in Brockton, Massachusetts, a city about 25 miles south of Boston.
“That was very different from Bangor,” Rebecca Kirk said. “We focused a lot on recovery [for those using drugs and alcohol] and helping to establish a children’s program.”
The couple spent a lot of their time in Brockton “pulling people out of that lifestyle,” Jeffrey Kirk said.
“It’s a heartbreaking ministry,” Rebecca Kirk said. “There were a lot of funerals — men, mostly in their late 20s and early 30s, overdosing. That is where we’re coming from.”
Jeffrey Kirk said the recent sentencing of a Brockton man, convicted in Bangor of three counts of murder and arson in an August 2012 drug deal gone bad, shows “there is a connection between Bangor and Brockton” and his goal is to help “cut that off” by providing services that help people.
The Salvation Army was founded in London in 1865 to help the needy and the Bangor Salvation Army serves the community by operating the Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen, providing utility and heating assistance, a summer camp for children, a food pantry, clothing assistance and two Sunday services — Sunday school for all ages beginning at 9:45 a.m. and an 11 a.m. worship service.
The Kirks plan to add a music program, expand outreach services for children and adults, and bring back the auction that was popular in the years when Frank and Bonnie Kirk were the captains running the show.
“We’re going to offer free music lessons because when you expand a child’s experiences, the more successful they are as adults,” Rebecca Kirk said. “These are not just fun programs. It’s a safe place to be.”
The programs offered will help build skill sets so people can “see outside their current situations,” she said.
Another goal is to improve the emergency disaster services offered, Jeffrey Kirk said.
“We have the resources and the [mobile] canteen,” he said. “If there is a storm that hits Vermont or New Hampshire, Bangor can bring in our canteen and meet that need.”
The Kirks have four children — 12-year-old twins, a 7-year-old and a 6-year-old — and the youngsters already have been adopted by those working at the local Salvation Army, who have known the Kirk family for decades.
“It feels like home for them,” Rebecca Kirk said.