Youths lend a helping hand to homeowner with MS

Thanks to a host of students from Columbia Falls junior and senior highs, Pamela Griffin’s home has a fresh coat of paint.

The Columbia Drive resident suffers from multiple sclerosis and is wheelchair bound. So neighbor, friend and teacher Eric Morgan got the two clubs together to scrape and re-paint Griffin’s home. Morgan is a member of the Columbia Falls Kiwanis Club. Key Club is the high school extension of the Kiwanis; Builders is the junior high extension. All told, more than 20 youths, along with Kiwanis members, spruced up Griffin’s home.

“We knew she needed help with her house,” Morgan said.

The kids were happy to help.

“We wanted to put in the service hours for the community,” Delaney Hutcheson, a seventh-grader and member of the Builders Club, said.

The Key Club is headed up by art teacher Kate Daniels at the high school. It has about 10 members this year and is looking for projects and any new members as well.

Griffin was happy for the help.

She moved here in 1981 from the Cut Bank. Her first husband was a forest planner for the Flathead National Forest, but died in 1986. Her second husband also died. She’s had M.S. since 2000 and lost her ability to walk with a walker last year. Now she gets around in a powered wheelchair. She said she has no pain from the ailment, which attacks the nervous system, impairing the nervous system’s ability to communicate. There is no cure.

Still, Griffin said she has a good outlook on life. She can still cook and get around in her chair and walk her dog. But the help with the house was much appreciated.

“It’s awesome,” she said.