PA Local Heroes is a monthly feature sponsored by Ballard Spahr. Installments appear first in PA Local, Spotlight PA’s weekly newsletter that takes a fresh, positive look at the incredible people, beautiful places, and delicious food of Pennsylvania. Sign up for free here.
Mary Harper has dedicated most of her life to helping others.
In college, she painted a riverboat and cleaned out a gift shop as part of a service effort in Kentucky. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she traveled to New Orleans to help people without flood insurance gut their homes. Later, she worked for over two decades as an analyst with the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbilities Services, connecting religious communities to mental health care.
And when she retired in August 2019, by September she was volunteering with the American Red Cross.
Harper originally thought the humanitarian org would assign her to disaster relief. But when her colleagues there learned of her behavioral health background and her personal ties to the military, she was tasked with working on its veteran support projects.
She had a simple answer when asked why she dedicates so much of her time to volunteering: “It's the work that I do in the community that's important.”
Harper’s dedication to helping veterans through the American Red Cross earned her a nomination for our PA Local Heroes series, sponsored by Ballard Spahr.
Assigned to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Region of the Red Cross, Harper works on several different programs.
She facilitates monthly wellness workshops aimed at supporting vets through the problems they face in everyday life. She creates and distributes comfort kits for veterans, which provide toiletries like soap and toothpaste as well as socks and T-shirts. And she helps coordinate Yellow Ribbon events, which help prepare service members and their families for the realities of deployment. At these events, which take place about four to five times a year, veterans also learn about the Hero Care Network, a program that provides crisis support for active-duty military and their families.
“Multiple days a week, she is giving her time to the Red Cross, and this has been going on for like seven years now,” said Ellen Ginda, senior volunteer engagement specialist at the Red Cross. Harper is “just such a passionate humanitarian who is constantly giving,” Ginda added.
Ginda first met Harper at a banquet in 2022. She immediately noticed Harper’s warmth, she told PA Local.
Harper said veterans and their loved ones inspire her to step up. She knows personally how life in the service can affect families.
Her brother was in the Army, and experienced regular nightmares after he was discharged, she said. They lost touch and he floated around the country and eventually dropped off the grid. Harper would write to him, but her letters stopped arriving, and were returned to her.
She searched for him from 1993 to 2018, she told PA Local, regularly calling the Veterans Administration to try to track him down. Eventually, a co-worker found him through a network that helps locate missing people. The next day, Harper learned that her brother had died in the mid-2000s in Las Vegas.
She saw a silver lining despite the news.
“The veterans took care of him,” Harper said, “and he was in the veterans cemetery, which is gorgeous because … it's nothing but sand out there but [the cemetery is] luscious.”
“So we went out there, and I got to see him,” she said, referring to his headstone. “So I was able to bring closure to that, not only for myself but my kids and my family, and it’s because of what the veterans did.”
Harper strongly believes veterans and families need support, and aspires to provide it however she can.
The key to connecting with vets, she said, is listening when they open up about experiences and triggers. She tries to be especially attentive when they mention struggling with activities civilians think of as normal.
She recalls a veteran telling her, “‘I don't like going down the aisle to buy soap because if I smell Irish Springs, it would trigger me.’” Support networks and services offered by groups like the Red Cross help vets manage such triggers.
When workshops and programs end, Harper stays in touch with families and vets. She said they trust her expertise and feel comfortable checking in with her to provide updates on how they’re doing.
“Mary is a bright light,” Ginda said. “She is so friendly and compassionate. She is always looking to help.”
Harper says she will continue to volunteer as long as her body allows it.
“I'm 71 years old, prayerfully, I will be able to volunteer 10 more years,” Harper said. “I love being a Red Cross volunteer. I discovered I am a humanitarian.”
