For 25 years, Anita Barlow helped to fight crime and keep Selma’s streets safe as a captain for the Selma Police Department but for the past seven years, she’s been helping people in a different way.

As a volunteer twice for Vaughan Regional Medical Center, Barlow works every Friday morning inside the hospital’s gift shop. Her friendly, jovial personality cannot be missed.

“I’ve always been a people person,” Barlow said. “I felt like I was needed here … I worked here as a volunteer even when I was in the workforce; I like the fellowship we have with one another up here. We all get along great together … the people we work with is so great.”

Barlow said what she likes most about her job is the chance to help others.

“I like being able to help people and be there for them,” Barlow said. “If not in the gift shop, I direct people where they need to go (or) I take flowers to patients, or wheelchair them up; I work at the front desk. The people I come in contact with, I treat them the same way — how I would want to be treated.”

And when she’s not volunteering, Barlow enjoys riding motorcycles cross-country with her husband David and going camping.