Community Corner

Couple Runs Local Salvation Army Office Hoping To Help Others

The Salvation Army's James and Joy Labbe met on MySpace.

Husband and wife James and Joy Labbe have been running the  on Main Street in Malden since late June, where James say the couple continues to “fact find” to “fill the gaps” of need in Malden and surrounding communities.

So far, the couple has brought a number of new programs to the branch: last fall, to anyone in need on Monday nights as well as a street ministry the team hopes to expand after the holidays.

The pair, who have both worked for the Salvation Army for years, met when Joy's name was the first to pop up during a MySpace search for “Salvation Army.” Though she lived in New Jersey and he in Massachusetts, the duo would later meet up at a regional event for the organization, fall in love and get married just over a year later in 2007.

Find out what's happening in Maldenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

So far, the Labbes have worked together at a Salvation Army center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and also ran a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Paterson, New Jersey.

Joy acknowledged some of quirks that come along with sharing a full-time job with one's husband - “If you have an issue at home, you can't go to work and forget about it, (and) I can't go home and complain about my co-workers,” she laughs – but said the couple is adept at balancing the personal and professional.

Find out what's happening in Maldenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In fact, Joy said, their relationship is the perfect dynamic for the job – with James role as an “ideas” man complimenting Joy's flair for the details.

“My husband has the creative mind, and he finds out from me what we have money to do,” Joy laughs.

For James, the passion is personal: he, too was once homeless and drug-addicted. Now sober for 15 years and an ordained minister, James said he is “most comfortable” working “on the curbstone” with those in crisis.

“Basically, I would burn bridges,” he recalled. “I would do a pattern: I would have a job, little job somewhere, and then go pick up a drink of alcohol, and I'd lose everything. My focus was always on 'where's my next drink,' never, 'oh, I have an electric bill.'”

“The path I went down was not a good path,” he concluded. “It was a path of destruction, and...I'm here now and want to provide hope to everybody. Everybody is the same in God's eyes, and everybody deserves God's love. No matter what your circumstances are, every human being on this planet is a good person and has good inside of them.

“My mission is, really, giving people hope, and helping them to get through,” he concluded. “It's a struggle out there.”

“I wouldn't trade what I do for anything in the world,” Joy adds. “Not on a bad day...I love that I actually get to have a job where I do for others...I think I have the greatest job in the world.”

For more information on volunteering with the Mystic Valley Salvation Army, call (781) 324-1970


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here