Happiest of meals at Helpline

Published 5:00 am Wednesday, November 24, 2004

She is 67 years old, tall and striking and stylish, even though her faux-leather coat came from Wal-Mart.

She used to own a home on the island and worked for years as a business manager for an international firm in Seattle. But the firm went under and her retirement pay vanished.

Then there was a string of bad luck: a car wreck, heart disease, a botched surgery. She lost her home and her car, was confined to a wheelchair, and for a time lived in a tool shed at a friend’s house.

“I never thought all this could happen to me,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “I will tell you, with a string of catastrophes, it doesn’t take much.”

Stories of job loss and illness are not uncommon at Helpline House, where the woman was among more than 150 clients who came to collect groceries for Thanksgiving early this week.

“I love Helpline,” said the woman, who has been coming to the agency for food, clothing and counseling for three years. She also obtained a subsidized apartment and now is back on her feet, declaring, “I would be lost without them.”

With Thanksgiving coming, dozens of school children, service clubs, businesses, neighborhood groups and individuals delivered food to Helpline so low-income islanders could enjoy a fine holiday meal, even if they couldn’t afford it.

They brought fancifully wrapped boxes and baskets filled to the brim with turkeys, stuffing mix, potatoes, yams, butter, rolls, tangerines and pies.

Some boxes included cards and unexpected gifts of candles, tablecloths, cloth napkins, kitchen towels and sparkling apple cider.

Helpline volunteers checked each box and added whatever might be missing to make a complete, traditional Thanksgiving meal, be it fresh celery for the stuffing or chicken stock for soup from the leftover bird.

Among the folks toting boxes of food to the agency Monday morning was Bill Klein, a longtime donor for Helpline’s Thanksgiving food drive.

“We can afford to do it and should help,” Klein said matter-of-factly. “We’ve never needed the services of Helpline House, but we know it’s here if we ever do.”

Dain Rauscher employees Rebecca Roberts and Natalie Cunningham arrived with several boxes of food and a $225 cash donation collected by the staff at the brokerage firm.

Although Bainbridge Island has a reputation for affluence, “There are plenty of people in this community who need help,” Roberts said.

At Carden and Island schools, making up the food boxes for Helpline is an annual rite of fall.

“The kids love to participate,” said Carden parent Jennifer Ekin, making a delivery Monday morning. “Sometimes the teachers and the children pray for the families who will receive them” before the boxes leave the school.

Indeed, most of the baskets go to “working families with children, who are trying to make ends meet,” said Marilyn Gremse, Helpline House’s volunteer coordinator.

Without the community’s help, the Thanksgiving basket giveaway would not be possible, she said.

“We couldn’t possibly buy all this food. It would cost thousands of dollars, money we don’t have,” Gremse said. “We have had such a great outpouring of help from the community.”

One of the biggest donors to the Wishbone Project is Town & Country Market, which gave a $15,000 gift this year – roughly 25 percent of Helpline’s cash food pantry budget for the year.

The money was raised through a T&C promotion last week, in which 5 percent of each purchase over three days went to Helpline.

“That money goes a long way. It’s used as a line of credit that we will use all year long to buy eggs, meat and fresh foods that we don’t receive from donations,” Gremse said.