Linda Hochreiter, l., and Michelle Small, c., receiving the Bellingham School District 2017 Promise Community Partner Service Award. Photos courtesy of Michelle Small.
By Stefanie Donahue
Once a month, about two dozen retired women get together to brainstorm ways to help teens in the Bellingham school district who don’t live with their parents or guardians. Thanks to a generous donation from four local residents last month, they’re ready to set their sights on Blaine.
The group fronts the Bellingham Giving Circle, which was created in 2012 by current president Michelle Small. They aim to provide school supplies and basic resources to kids who don’t live with their parents or guardians in order to help them graduate from high school.
“These kids are on the street, couch surfing,” Small said. “[They] really fall through the cracks.”
Last month, Brian Southwick, Linda Kiens, Tom and Kathleen O’Gorman contributed a combined $20,000 to Bellingham Giving Circle with the intention of establishing a satellite program in the Blaine school district.
Based on early budgets, the $20,000 will allow the program to operate in Blaine for the next three years without fundraising; an additional $15,000 recently donated by the O’Gormans will allow the Bellingham program to survive at least one full year, Small said.
Small taught in Colorado for 30 years before she retired and moved to Bellingham 18 years ago. She said the Bellingham Giving Circle has raised $75,000 since it started. It’s a feat she said she never expected to accomplish.
Squalicum High School staff member Lily Cory in the school’s Giving Circle food pantry.
“We had no idea it would grow like this,” Small said. “We thought we’d be bringing a box of power bars to schools.”
Small and her team of volunteers have provided $50,000 worth of backpacks, school supplies, sleeping bags, tents, clothing and shoe gift cards, laundry vouchers and more in the five years since the program started, she said. They’ve also installed food pantries in each high school in Bellingham, which allows teens access to non-perishable, healthy food throughout the day.
The Bellingham Giving Circle secretary Linda Hochreiter and assistant treasurer Patti Hawley will coordinate the program in Blaine. Small said they’ve already filled many school backpacks with supplies for the coming year and they also plan to install a food pantry. They’re considering other programs for the school, but have yet to make any formal decisions.
Anyone can join the Bellingham Giving Circle. Volunteers meet once a month for a potluck and the time, date and location is posted online at bit.ly/2vD7O04.
