Salvation Army Welcomes New Leaders to Anderson
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
In the Salvation Army’s world, people often arrive by way of a need, a call, or a durable memory from childhood that left a lasting impression. For Captains Brittany and David Donegan, the new leaders of the Anderson Corps, it was all three, along with a Little Debbie snack cake handed out from a church van in 1983, which David said became a small, sweet and consequential piece of evangelism.
David Donegan said he first came to the Salvation Army as a child in the early 1980s, when a church van would drive by, honk, and invite whoever wanted to come to church to climb aboard. The attraction, at first, was practical and sweet: the snack cake. The consequence, over time, was less trivial. He and his sisters began attending, eventually became part of the Corps, and later returned after a few years away, prompted by a period of grief, a renewed sense of calling, and, finally, the conviction that their lives were being asked for something more than ordinary adulthood.
Brittany Donegan’s route was different and, in a way, more private. She did not grow up in the Salvation Army, but after praying for guidance from God, she found herself — and eventually her husband — in its orbit, certain that their return to church in 2017 was not a coincidence but a direction. The pair went to training college in 2019, were commissioned in 2021, and have since moved through a sequence of appointments that took them from Nashville to Atlanta, then to Paducah and Hopkinsville, Ky., and now Anderson.
The Donegans, who arrived in Anderson last week, said they have been greeted warmly, both by the community and by the officers they replaced, and that the transition already felt like the continuation of work begun by Maj. Joe and Melissa Irvin. They described Anderson as beautiful, friendly, and inviting.
What the public often sees of the Salvation Army, David Donegan said, is the Red Kettle in winter and the Angel Tree at Christmas. But that is only the most visible layer of an organization that, in daily life, is part church, part shelter, part rescue station, and part very patient listener. The Corps helps with rent, utilities, food, shelter, and meals, but it also insists on being understood as not only a faith-based ministry whose first task is not merely to deliver aid but to offer a “hand up,” but a church.
That idea is especially important in Anderson, where the Salvation Army remains the county’s only source of shelter beds and a place that must keep making room for people whose stories are often complicated, temporary, and expensive. The Donegans said the building is aging, the freezer and air-conditioning systems are already proving temperamental just as a heat wave arrives, and the organization relies on donations, volunteers, and technical help as much as on sympathy. In a hot South Carolina summer, a failing cooler or dead AC unit is not merely an inconvenience; it is the kind of emergency that reveals how much local charity depends on local maintenance.
The Donegans come to that work with experience. They said they were active in Kentucky housing and homelessness efforts, including rapid rehousing and a housing-first approach, and that they hope to bring that perspective to Anderson’s ongoing conversations about shelter beds and long-term support. Their goal is not on patching over crises but on solving them in a way that keeps a family from returning to the same emergency next month, or next year, in slightly altered form.
David Donegan’s other qualification is perhaps less measurable but no less useful: he has lived long enough to understand how a small act can redirect a life. The Little Debbie cake he received as a child became the first sign that someone outside his family might care about him. The memory has become a kind of informal theology for him now. The Salvation Army, he said, should be the place where one person’s small offerings — a meal, a ride, a volunteer hour, a lifted burden — can alter the shape of another person’s future.
The couple also brought a family with them, including their children Tara and Ryan, and said they hope Anderson will become the kind of place where their daughter might finish high school and their son might grow up in the same civic weather they are now trying to serve. They said they intend to become not merely residents but participants, joining civic groups, sending children to local schools, and stitching their own lives into the life of the town.
In that sense, the Donegans are not just new officers; they are a reminder of the Salvation Army’s odd and durable structure, in which ministry and municipal needs often overlap. The organization’s work is inseparable from the community’s need for food, shelter, faith, and a place to begin again. Anderson is now not only their appointment but a place they can call home.
