Bob Willmott's Legacy Lives On -- Strand Helpers Is Still Feeding The Hungry, Housing The Homeless

When Bob Willmott died, a light for homeless and hungry people in Seattle went out, and Strand Helpers, which he founded and ran almost by himself, seemed to drop out of the public eye.

But while his tireless, if cantankerous, voice for those down on their luck was stilled, Strand Helpers is very much alive. Even now, turkey and ham dinners are being cooked and will be served by the organization to perhaps 1,000 people in Occidental Park on New Year's Day.

Strand Helpers' old catering truck will be in the park at noon; tables will be set up if the weather is favorable, and the food will be served all afternoon, or until it's gone.

Willmott was a mythic man of the West in his cowboy hat and boots, often digging his spurs figuratively into city officials on behalf of those without places to live or enough to eat. He dogged politicians on the campaign trail, once running for the City Council

and then in 1989 for mayor.

Bearded and rough-hewn, with a language to match his appearance, Willmott was Strand Helpers to many.

He died at age 50 in August 1990 of wounds suffered when he was shot while trying to evict a man from Strand Helpers' shelter on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South. He had been drinking and, carrying an unloaded rifle, had burst into a room where the man and his family were staying.

Strand Helpers paused to mourn his death, then regrouped, and they still dish out food to several hundred people each weekday

afternoon in Courthouse Park, on the south side of the King County Courthouse downtown. It's "Bob Willmott Park" to Strand Helpers.

"The people that we serve downtown know we haven't disappeared," said Michael Sandiford, one of four men who picked up the reins from Willmott.

Willmott ran a shelter and food operation that was sometimes haphazard and often disorganized. Keeping accounts straight was not his forte, but he was appreciated for his candor and his unceasing efforts to improve the lives of the poor.

Jim Feigley is the director now, and he's soft-spoken, whereas Willmott was outspoken. He stood in Willmott's long shadow as one of the Strand Helpers for many years, helping to get it running, and now he's tightening up the organization and bringing a business sense to its operation - while trying to straighten up the paperwork.

"I knew Bob for 20 years. We were exact opposites. That's why we got along so well," said Feigley, who has been a merchant seaman, a dance instructor and a buyer for a store. He has owned a downtown tavern for years.

"He was a unique person who brought a great deal of attention to himself," Feigley said of Willmott. "He did a lot of good because he pointed out the flaws in the system."

Feigley, bespectacled and well-groomed, is a part-time director. The other top officials are Sandiford, assistant director; Marvin Sterling, kitchen manager; and Rich Rudnick, shelter manager.

All four are unpaid volunteers. The nonprofit organization relies entirely on private donations. No public money or government grants come its way, Feigley said.

The shelter is on a hillside in Rainier Valley, and 34 men are staying there this week, including Arthur B. Brown, 79, who has moved with Strand Helpers from one shelter location to another since the organization first served meals to street people in the old Strand Hotel in the Belltown neighborhood on Thanksgiving 1982.

Brown has found a warm and welcome home, and he remembers Willmott as a "good-natured man who never turned anyone down for anything."

The organization has had a shelter at four locations over the years. It was driven from two of them by arson.

Just before Christmas, dozens of turkeys, hams and other meat where stolen from the current shelter's outdoor freezers. The kitchen door was broken in also, and appliances were taken.

Strand Helpers quickly made a plea for donations of more food, and it flowed in profusely, Feigley said. Some of this food is being cooked today in a kitchen at St. Mark's Cathedral. Seattle restaurateur Francois Kissel is once again supervising hundreds of volunteers who are preparing dinners that will be served on New Year's Day.

Said Kissel, who has been doing this for Strand Helpers on three holidays a year since 1987: "I think if we don't take care of the world at large, we will never be able to make a more peaceful, more human world."

Bob Willmott would have been pleased that the hungry are still being fed and sheltered.