On being a caretaker...

MOSES LAKE — Amy Bargelt grew up in the Marysville area, north of Seattle. Growing up, it was a small town, but it was eventually swallowed up by Seattle.  

“When I had my son, I didn’t want him to grow up in a little Seattle. I got to grow up slow, and I wanted to do the same for my kid,” Bargelt said.  

A family friend was in his low 90s and needed a caretaker, she said, so she took that opportunity to move to Moses Lake. She took that job and moved to the area and got involved in a variety of volunteer efforts, helping with the Moses Lake Fire Department’s Coats for Kids program as well as an MLFD golf tournament and volunteering for the school districts. She even opted to cook lunch and set up a spaghetti feed for the fire department. 

“That was a lot,” Bargelt said. “I cooked for like, 40 people, spaghetti, and it was a bigger undertaking than I’d anticipated.”  

Despite the challenges of being a single mom, helping family going through different challenges and the stresses of adulthood in general, Bargelt focuses on keeping things positive. She is taking care of her brother’s two children while he settles some personal business and while it could have made her feel stretched thin, she said she’s opted to look at the good of the situation. 

“I look at the positive side,” she said. “Now I get to know my niece and nephew a little bit better, because they live on the west side. It’s not like I get to see them regularly, so now I just have a moment to spend time with them and learn them as little people.”  

It’s a balance to make sure her son, Ray, now 17, knows that he’s still a priority, but she works to ensure he knows he’s a top priority. She tries to take him out once a week to get some time with just the two of them. She said that he makes her proud because he’s turned out to be a respectful and kind young man. The type of person she hoped he’d become.  

“I’m very blessed when it comes to my son,” she said. “Him and I are very, very close and he’s a very respectful young man.”  

Bargelt said she’s been glad to see that he’s learned one of the main lessons she’s worked to teach him — that catastrophes happen, but in the long term, life always gets better.  

She’s hoping to pass the same views on to her niece and nephew while they’re with her. She works hard to lift them up and remind them to stay positive. She, her niece and nephew all wear matching bracelets. That way, if they’re having a hard day, they know she’s still with them. It’s about focusing on the small joys rather than the larger stresses. 

“When it comes to little kids, they don’t really care about the bigger stuff, you know. They just want your time,” Bargelt said.  

In addition to taking care of her son, niece and nephew, Bargelt is also an entrepreneur. Her business, Simply Honest Marketing, works to help small businesses become better known. 

“I help them learn how to do business development, website design and social media management,” Bargelt said.  

She said a lot of the work she does with clients is helping them get name recognition. Small businesses struggle, but success is easier to achieve with name recognition and solid branding.  

Bargelt has a day job in addition to the business, helping people through Country Financial’s Moses Lake location. Again, taking care of others as they come to the office. 

When it comes to taking care of herself, Bargelt said there are certain things that are absolute musts for her.  

“Every year, that’s the bare minimum that I will do for myself, is my gold mining trip,” she said. “And that’s with family. My family has claims on the California-Oregon border.”  

When she’s not out and about gold mining, she packs a fishing rod or hunting rifle, camps, knits and reads a great deal.  

“A lot of (the books I read) are development books. I try and improve myself — but I’m a huge Harry Potter fan,” Bargelt said.  

Bargelt's marketing company may be reached online at https://bit.ly/SMPLYHNST.

Editor’s Note: Amy Bargelt was recognized in our sister publication’s — Basin Business Journal — 40-under-40 program this year and the information we published at the time was out of date. Bargelt is a wonderful and gracious woman who allowed us to make it right by coming in to sit down and visit with an editor who is also a fan of Harry Potter  and ended up becoming a fan of Bargelt’s in the process. Bargelt is proof that the people of the Columbia Basin are its greatest strength and we’re grateful for her kindness, positivity and sense of humor. 

    A single mom, Amy Bargelt tries to spend as much time as possible with her son, Ray. She and her son are close, and she tries to make sure they have at least one mother-son activity a week together.
  

    Amy Bargelt’s son, Ray, volunteers as a “victim” during an EMT training. Bargelt works to support local firefighters and EMTs.
  

    One of Amy Bargelt's favorite annual outings is to go gold mining with her family at a claim they have along the California-Oregon border.