Former Peace Corps volunteers enjoy Aljoya’s community feel

Published 2:00 pm Monday, October 20, 2025

Steve Garber says the Aljoya Mercer Island retirement community is filled with interesting people who have lived interesting lives.

Sitting across from her husband in their unit, Peggy adds that, “Sense of community here is very warm and accepting and friendly. It just felt like home as soon as we moved in.”

The Garbers, who have been married for 59 years and have resided at Aljoya since January 2024, are certainly captivating residents, too, as shown by their volunteering with the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, West Africa, working for the infamous American mutual fund company Investors Overseas Services in France, traveling worldwide and much more.

Peggy, 79, has contributed to the Aljoya community by chairing and sitting on the resident council board of the Friends Helping Friends Committee and helping with the aspiring writers group and its publication. Steve, 81, writes for the publication (about carnivorous driver ants in Sierra Leone and the couple’s travels) and the former Seattle Chamber Music Society board member has a hand in presenting some of the chamber’s virtual concerts at Aljoya.

According to Aljoya, “They embody curiosity, compassion and lifelong adventure — from their Peace Corps service to their ongoing community involvement and creative pursuits at Aljoya Mercer Island. They’re a wonderful representation of our vibrant and engaged residents.”

According to their Aljoya bios, Steve grew up on a family farm in Lincoln County west of Spokane, and Peggy was born in Washington, DC, and moved to Bellevue in the fourth grade. The two met on the bunny slope at Snoqualmie Pass during ski lessons with the UW Ski School in January of 1966.

A year earlier in March, 20-year-old Steve and about 700 others followed Martin Luther King across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, during a civil rights protest.

“I thought that all people in this country should be treated both fairly and equally, and they certainly weren’t,” said Steve, adding that it was important for him to march and that the event shaped his life.

On Oct. 18, Peggy and Steve were set to participate in the No Kings protest at Aubrey Davis Park. While entering the Garbers’ Aljoya unit, a No Kings protest poster leaned against a wall, ready to waved at the event.

“We wanna be counted. Wanna be a body that’s out there as a citizen of this country. And standing up for democracy and what we think is important to preserve,” said Peggy, who noted that they also also attended the No Kings protest on June 14 at Mercerdale Park. She’s volunteered with the League of Women Voters and is currently a member of that organization.

When the topic rolls back around to the Peace Corps, Peggy said that the experience changed their lives.

“It grew out of a desire to help other people and learn about the world and a desire to travel,” said Peggy, adding that they learned a lot during the tough experience.

In the corps, Peggy was tasked with working with new mothers to improve the health and survival of their babies, and Steve saved a nursery of 20,000 abandoned oil palm tree seedlings so they could be sold and transplanted to the local farmers and produce a cash crop, according to their bios.

Thinking back about the advice he’s been given throughout his lifetime, Steve — a former CPA who co-founded a successful CPA firm — said, “My mother told me I can do anything, and when that didn’t work out, try something else, and that’s kind of how I live my life.”