PORT ANGELES — Years of remodelling efforts are expected to reach fruition in 2019 with the opening of the Captain Joseph House respite home for Gold Star families, organizer Betsy Schultz said Tuesday.
The effort was pushed over the top by a $225,000 state capital projects grant that 24th District state legislators Steve Tharinger, Mike Chapman and Kevin Van De Wege had a hand in procuring, Schultz told Port Angeles Business Association breakfast meeting participants. She received word about the grant in January, she said, and she doesn’t know when she will receive the funds.
“We’re still doing more steps,” said Schultz, founder and executive director of the Captain Joseph House Foundation.
“I’ve been asked often, why is the house taking so long.
“At this point, it’s 85 percent finished.
“We would like to be done with the build and the yard by the end of the year, so we can bring families in in 2019.”
Schultz, 67, said all the heavy-duty work including plumbing, electricity, roofing and heating improvements at the former Tudor Inn bed and breakfast at 1108 S. Oak St. in Port Angeles have been completed, in no small part thanks to volunteer hours.
Schultz was asked at the meeting about finances for the project, how much it will cost to run the facility and the fundraising efforts that will have to be employed once Captain Joseph House is up, running and hosting family members of American military personnel who died in combat since Sept. 11, 2001.
The project, including remodeling and landscaping, will cost an estimated $800,000 in donations and grants by the time the facility opens, with $150,000 of the cost covered in in-kind contributions. The funding is available, or promised, now.
The project has put back $337,000 back into the community for products and services, Schultz said in a later interview.
A sleeve was installed last weekend for a 44-foot-tall pole for a flag “that will represent all the families who have served and sacrificed,” she said.
Schultz’s is one of those families. Her son, Army Special Operations Capt. Joseph Schultz, 36, was killed May 29, 2011, in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device while on patrol.
Gold Star families will come to Captain Joseph House for weeklong stays — Sunday through Friday — in all-expenses-paid trips funded by the Captain Joseph House Foundation.
They will interact with other families, take advantage of area recreation, and do what they must to advance the healing process, including taking advantage of mental health and social services counselors who will be made available, Schultz said.
“They need to find a way to laugh again,” she told the meeting goers.
The 4,052-square-foot, three-bedroom facility will house up three families consisting of up to 16 people a week for 48 weeks a year, or 768 people total.
Schultz estimated it will cost “just under” $1 million to run the facility annually at maximum capacity.
Transportation at an average of $650 a person takes up about half the operational costs, with the rest covering food and recreation costs and travel once they arrive, Schultz said in a later interview.
Expenditures also will include about five full-time employees, including a manager and a van driver, but she’s also hoping that volunteers will donate their time.
“The majority of people do not want to be paid at Captain Joseph House,” Schultz told the group.
Schultz donated the Tudor Inn bed and breakfast to the Captain Joseph House Foundation, which now owns the property, following her 2011 bankruptcy.
Schultz, who lives across the street from the facility, is the executive director of the foundation, which is governed by a board that includes President Kathy Charlton, Vice President Joe Borden, Treasurer Jeff Winston and Secretary Mary Jo Koepke.
The foundation expects to hire a fundraiser, Schultz said.
Schultz will continue to be paid $36,000 a year as foundation’s executive director.
“My job will be to travel more than I do now around the country, doing fundraising,” Schultz said after the meeting.
“This is a major effort.”
The foundation is developing a strategic, long-range fundraising plan, working with airlines to help cover transportation costs for Gold Star families, and trusting that participating families will return to their homes from Port Angeles and say to others, “we need to make sure every Gold Star family has the opportunity to go to Captain Joseph House,” Schultz said.
Captain Joseph House visitors will be chosen by foundation staff based on a first-come basis without regard to income, she added.
Schultz’s idea for Captain Joseph House grew out of her experiences in the four days following her son’s death, she told he breakfast group.
She went to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where other Gold Star families “welcomed our loved ones coming home.”
Years later, “they are still in those days where they just found out about their loss,” she said.
She noted that at the beginning of May 2011, her bankruptcy was finalized.
Her son died a few weeks later, following a Mother’s Day that he celebrated as he always did — by sending her flowers, no matter how far-flung and dangerous his location.
“May 1 has always been the beginning of a month that has lots of memories,” Schultz said.
“My life has never been the same.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
