35 years later, Hopelink serves

With the economy plummeting and Boeing laying off masses of people, a small group of residents working out of donated space at Bothell City Hall launched a nonprofit organization to help people in need get back on their feet.

Thirty-five years later, Hopelink's core mission is very much intact.

That handful of volunteers who pitched in to help their neighbors in April 1971 has become the largest human-services organization on the Eastside, serving more than 50,000 people annually. Despite five name changes over its three-plus decades, it's still known as the place to go for help.

Its services now include food banks, emergency and transitional shelter, adult literacy programs, financial-management classes, job-skills training, assistance with paying energy bills, and transportation for disabled and elderly clients to medical appointments.

"Ideally, we'd want to work ourselves out of business," said Doreen Marchione, Hopelink's executive director since 1992. "There will always be some people who need help. But, ultimately, we want to work to see the numbers going down."

So far, the opposite has happened. In 1983, the agency's 345 volunteers contributed a total of 18,594 hours. In 2005, 1,700 volunteers contributed about 50,000 hours.

The agency's $4.1 million budget in 1989 has grown tenfold to an expected $40 million in 2006.

The resources still can't keep up with the need, Marchione said.

"When I first started here, we were turning away six families for every family we could take into a transitional shelter," she said. "Through the years, that jumped to 12 families for every family we can house, and we've added units. The demand has increased in greater proportion to the units we've been able to add."

Jan Dickerman, director of housing and child-development programs, remembers when the agency opened its first emergency shelter in Kenmore — one of the first shelters on the Eastside.

From there, a housing program slowly began to develop, Dickerman said.

"In 1990 we purchased a fourplex in Redmond, and I was giddy with excitement," she said. "The program has evolved and developed and grown. But it's always been all about self-sufficiency and treating people with the respect that they deserve, assisting in the places where they need help."

As waves of immigrants settled on the Eastside — many from Laos, Vietnam and Ukraine — Hopelink recognized a new need and focused on offering adult-literacy classes. In 2001 it merged with Eastside Literacy.

"I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for them," said Erin Rettig, 35, a single mother of two teenagers who worked with Hopelink's literacy program. "They are respectful of your feelings and sensitive toward your needs."

After a serious head injury as a child, she had a long recuperation and was never able to get caught up in school, Rettig said.

As an adult, she decided to make up what she had lost. She signed up for Hopelink's literacy program and met with a tutor twice a week for two years.

She's now a fan of Nora Robert novels and the Harry Potter series and is learning to save for her future through Hopelink's money-management programs.

"I don't feel like I'm doing it alone anymore," Rettig said. "The biggest thing really is that they basically gave me the tools to help manage my life."

Hopelink now has more than 40 programs that serve all of East and North King County through six service centers in Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Bothell, Carnation and Shoreline.

Its paid staff numbers about 270, but it's the volunteers who keep the nonprofit running, Marchione said. The small army of volunteers allows it to keep overhead costs low and spend 92 percent of its money on client services, she said.

One of those is Johan Lysne, branch manager for HomeStreet Bank's Bellevue branch, who volunteers to teach Hopelink's financial-management courses.

"What is great about Hopelink is that they are serving people who are in need and at a point when they are looking for education," Lysne said. "[Hopelink] provides resources to help people be able to meet their needs themselves. That is powerful."

Marchione, who will retire at the end of the year, says she expects Hopelink to keep on changing and growing in the years ahead.

"The agency is in good shape, we've been able to accomplish good things, and I've had a good time," she said. "But it's time to hand it over to a new person."

Rachel Tuinstra: 206-515-5637 or rtuinstra@seattletimes.com

Information

Hopelink:

www.hope-link.org