At this time of year when thinking about all we have to be thankful for, I would like to recognize the United Way of San Juan County for its continuing support of The Funhouse and our Mentoring Programs.
Our Mentor Program is perhaps the most important thing we do. Our program provides our children with traditional one-on-one mentor matches, and several types of project-based matches, that link one caring adult with a small group of children.
We match seniors with children, and teens with children. We even have a unique and innovative program that enhances the schools’ education programs: Mentored Online Learning.
In the spring of 2008 there were approximately 550 children in school on Orcas Island.
At that time, 52 children were involved in Funhouse mentor programs. That is an incredible 9 percent of all the children on the island.
It would not be possible to continue these important programs without the generosity of the United Way.
On behalf of The Funhouse Board of Directors, staff and the children we serve, we thank the United Way for helping build healthy and resilient children, youth and families on Orcas Island and throughout San Juan County.
Thank you also to the many individuals who invest in our island communities by supporting the United Way.
Pete Moe
executive director,
The Funhouse
Budget cuts
Open Letter to the San Juan County Council:
As citizens of the community, we have been so impressed with the services provided by the Orcas Island Senior Center and County Offices.
We’ve been visiting Orcas for years, and watched with wonder as the offering has grown.
We have observed senior centers in other states – and there is nothing to match yours.
We have been so grateful for the life the latter has provided for your elderly, including someone we hold dear.
We have often spoken around the country of the extraordinary love offering all the folks who work at the center offer – with all the activities, the luncheons, the gentle counsel, how they keep track of those who are isolated and in need, provide meals, provide transport to doctor’s appointments, off-island functions, and now even have “Helping Hands” to come into folks’ homes to aid in cleaning or cooking, or simply for company. Hence we are truly horrified at the prospective cuts in the budget and invaluable employees.
We can’t believe you councilmen are truly aware of the services you’d be cutting to at least 40 to 50 long-term elderly residents. Surely you do not actually “know” them!
Among the many services that would be lost by the planned budget cuts to the Senior Center to these dear Orcas citizens who are still paying taxes and banking locally is the transportation to off-island medical specialists and otherwise essential shopping.
You cannot have considered how brief a time it would be, minus these services, before these folks would have to move off the island and quite possibly to nursing homes at horrendous cost to them and a loss to our community!
We were greatly relieved to learn council has reconsidered another at-risk position for budget cuts: juvenile court probation officers!
The cost to the community would be incalculable if we lose these caring professionals who are able to work with young people in our community and in many cases cause them to understand the consequences of their actions sufficiently to head off more serious trouble.
In addition to their efforts succeeding in turning aside beginning young offenders from more serious nefarious undertakings; we are sure, in some cases, they have actually saved taxpayers the cost of $120 in daily detention costs, let alone the $68,000 in annual cost of juvenile prison.
We are aware of the excellent counsel Mike Jennings has provided here at Orcas Island for local young. He is able, we believe, to keep the consequences to ill-behavior small with his caring, professional and realistic input into young lives; lives which can move on to have a wonderful future. Thank you, Council, for reconsidering!
Please, please, also reconsider any cuts to the incredible services and employees at the Senior Center! There has to be a different way to save money than on the backs of the breaking elderly and, as you rightly determined, the potentially broken young!
Bob and Terry Cairns
Eastsound
The Sounder
Margie is leaving? She will be greatly missed!
When it came to the arts, I found her coverage and photos to be just the kind of presentations that got the community’s attention and imagination to pull themselves away from their TVs and DVDs to go out and experience something alive and real.
Okay, things change, people move on…there will be some BIG shoes to fill for the next editor and I wish them the best.
And Margie, I hear you singing. Thank you for your wonderful work and support for the arts at the Sounder!
Deborah Sparks
Eastsound
