Sally Perinchief was in her twenties when she started volunteering at Packwood Home.

Sixty years later, she’s the same age as many of the residents — and still helping.

“I turned 83 last week,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

She was asked to join a committee rebuilding the Sandys rest home in the 1950s as she had a reputation for being good with money.

“I’d been successfully running a gift club in the Ely’s Harbour area,” she said. “This was a neighbourhood savings plan that allowed everyone to have a little bit of money at Christmas time. They had gift clubs all over Somerset, back then.”

When the home reopened, it had eight clients; she started buying the groceries.

“They needed breakfast things for the residents,” she said. “I started buying them bananas.”

Feeding eight was like child’s play for a woman who had 12 siblings.

“We had a big family and [parents Hildian and Mary Brangman] always had people staying with us,” Mrs Perinchief said. “My mother was always helping someone.”

She visits the home at least three times a week. She loves just sitting and chatting.

Residents affectionately call her “the banana lady”. She buys and delivers the fruit to them twice a week for breakfast.

“Sometimes people get smart as they get older,” she laughed. “There’s was this one lady who always wanted to beat me up every time I went.

“She’d make a fist. I’d playfully make one back and say, ‘Come on then, beat me up’. It was a lot of fun with some of the residents. I enjoy going.”

She’s always sad to see those residents who never have visitors. To alleviate loneliness around the holidays she arranges a Christmas service each year with music, a Bible reading and carols.

Family members are encouraged to come.

“Some do, some don’t,” she said.

During the event she takes up a collection which she uses to buy Christmas gifts for the residents. She places toiletries, socks and other practical gifts under the tree on December 23.

“I don’t get to watch them unwrap but someone always thanks me when I go in after Christmas,” she said.

In 2011 she was named a Member of the British Empire by the Queen for her service to Packwood. Her children, Lydia, Edwin and Collington, went with her to Government House to receive the award.

“At the time my husband, Collington, was sick so he couldn’t come with me,” she said.

Mr Perinchief died in 2013. The two were married for 55 years.

They met at West End Primary School. “We stayed friendly after primary school,” Mrs Perinchief said. “We married in 1958.”

Mr Perinchief was the assistant general manager at the Bermuda Telephone Company for many years.

It was hard when he died, but Mrs Perinchief refused to mope.

“I’m a people person,” she said. “You have to take it one day at a time and don’t sit at home.

“It won’t help you. You have your moments, because at certain times you remember different things, but you have to get out and mingle with people.”

She stayed active, raising funds to rebuild St James Church Hall after it was badly damaged by Hurricanes Fay and Gonzalo in 2014.

The church is dear to her heart.

“I was christened there, confirmed there and married there,” she said. “My parents were married there.”

The hall is still in need of repairs to its electrical wiring. When Tropical Storm Karl brushed by last month, Mrs Perinchief and other church members were scheduled to sell tags to aid that effort.

“Because of the weather forecast a lot of people decided not to do it,” she said. “But on Saturday afternoon my friend and I went out anyway. We raised $200 in two hours. I find people’s generosity often depends on the charity. Some people give money and they don’t even want a tag.”

As a young woman she studied sewing at the Girl’s Institute for Arts and Crafts.

“I was a seamstress for most of my life,” she said. “I made wedding and bridesmaids dresses.

“I decorated the hall and church. I also did wedding bouquets and hats.”

She still does a bit of alteration work, but is a little slower due to arthritis.

Her children are always asking when she’s going to slow down.

“I plan to do until I can’t anymore,” she said. “You have to keep busy or you’ll seize up.”