Family center celebrating its 30th anniversary

This Saturday, the residents of Wahkiakum County are invited to help St. James Family Center celebrate a very extraordinary 30th Anniversary at their open house and to learn about all the programs they offer, which are so much more than child care and preschool.

Considering SJFC’s modest beginnings, they have much to celebrate.

“We were told in the first few years that we could not do it,” Board Member Rachael Wolford said. “You cannot do it in a community this size. Your population is too small. How many times were we told that? Over and over and over. We just kept showing up. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how much the finances are down, no matter how difficult, we show up. You can call it persistence or faith or whatever, but basically it’s because we didn’t stop. We kept going.”

“I think persistence really pays off,” Board Member Irene Martin said, “but you have to be creative about it too.”

They didn’t have much money when the facility, which includes a gym and a commercial kitchen, was built. Erecting a structure was one thing, and furnishing it was another challenge.

“Several trips were made to Boeing Surplus to buy furniture because we couldn’t afford anything else,” Martin said. “You had to be creative to make it happen here. We just didn’t have much money. But we found ways around it.”

“Everybody was so excited when you came back with a truck load,” Wolford laughed.

Martin, Wolford and others held fast to their ideals about the services they wanted to provide, which included a quality early childhood education and choosing not to separate children in daycare because of income.

It took the rest of the state a while to catch up, but these ideas have become the norm.

“I think we are a model as far as rural programs in the state,” St. James Executive Director Beth Hansen said. “St. James Family Center is well known in the state because we are involved and always willing to do whatever it is to improve our quality and services to kids and family. We really don’t have the staff or the time to do things, but we do it anyway.”

“I think what is unique is the scope of our programs,” Hansen continued. “There are lots of early learning centers but we’ve built family support programs around it. We are our own referral service and a lot of the families are taking advantage of more than one program here. We are also able to connect them with other programs in the community or in the Longview/Kelso area or elsewhere in the state.”

"In the last several years,” Hansen added, “we’ve been maintaining and sustaining what we have and working on quality, making our programs the best they can be.”

An accounting mistake at United Way put a big dent in SJFC’s funding this year and they have had to scramble this year to keep things going. They were committed to their childcare and preschool programs, which they were able to maintain, but had to cut back on other programs.

“United Way is very positive,” Hansen said, “they say they haven’t lost any of their big funders and the new director is very positive. We are very hopeful that things will return to the way they were.”

“We did not raise enough to fill the hole, Wolford said. “We raised quite a bit of money but it was not all of what we had every reason to think we were going to get. So it has a been a stress all year long to keep programs going at the level they belong.”

Still they remain persistent, creative and flexible.

“I’m amazed at all of the local people who have not come into our building,” Hansen said. “We have people come from other areas to tour our building and are amazed that we have this building and this facility in this small community. We employ 23 people. We are one of the largest employers in this county. We are bringing in almost $500,000 in payroll. We’d really like to see people who haven’t been here in years or haven’t had the opportunity to be here come to our celebration and take a tour. It’s an opportunity for people to see how we’ve grown.”

“We want people to come and have a good time and share in our joy. It’s a community accomplishment,” Martin said.

Local band Willapa Hills will be play their original tunes and employees and volunteers will be provide tours of the facility. Children will participate in the program and there will be informative displays describing all the services that the center provides.

If that’s not enough to tempt residents to walk through their doors, there will be cake, too.

The Open House is from 1-4 p.m. on Saturday, October 3.