A Call For Family Support Center

The phone rang. It was 1991 and our tenth year in business. I was in my office at the Dutch Cup Restaurant in Sultan with an employee, single mom with five children. She had just returned from the hospital after her third suicide attempt.

On the other end of the line was Rene Perea from Snohomish County Human Services. Rene and I had known each other through work while I was on the Snohomish County Health Board. Rene wanted to know whether Sultan wanted- or needed- a Family Support Center.

The timing of her call could hardly have been more meaningful. But before I could answer, I needed to understand what she was offering.

“What is a Family Support Center?” I asked.

Rene explained that a Family Support Center would give people in our community a place to turn when they needed help. It could connect individuals and families with counselling, job training and other services to help them through difficult times.

She told me that $150,000 in federal funding was available to help community struggling with the decline of the timber industry. For Sultan and surrounding Sky Valley, which included Startup, Gold Bar, Index and Skykomish, this was an opportunity to bring much needed support closer to home.

She asked me if we could bring people together for a public meeting with her and her team, where residents could share the challenges, they were facing and the kinds of help they needed.

Over the next couple of days, I personally called 40 community members, including pastors, timber workers, business owners and city officials, and invited them to the evening meeting at Sultan City Hall.

We gathered to share the challenges facing our community with Rene and her team. Rene was impressed by the turnout and left with a greater understanding of our community’s needs.

Two weeks later she called to tell me that Darrington, a timber town too, also needed the money and they had a public meeting. I asked what I needed to do. She suggested that I would need to hold another meeting, which I then hosted for the same 40 people.

The Timber money was granted to Sultan and Sky Valley.

At that time the Volunteers of America had property which they were using only in the summer as a camping program for Developmentally Disabled people. They offered their facility and their organization to facilitate the program.

That was the beginning of a great partnership and a valuable resource for our community

One year later, Darrington received the same funding. Both area’s Family Support Centers are still serving the community to this day.