QUILCENE — “We had three hours to pack up anything we could carry and get out of there.”
Susan Archer’s description of her abrupt departure from her Oklahoma home last summer captures the urgency of a person needing to leave a domestic violence situation.
Archer, 29, quickly packed her three children — Blayke, 12, Diamond, 11, and Dawson, 5 — along with all the clothes they could stuff into her little car.
They headed west to seek help from her family near Quilcene in Jefferson County.
After three nights and four long days, they arrived.
“My sister was kind enough to take us in, but we literally arrived with just the clothes on our backs — and it was cold here,” Archer remembers.
She left the hot climate of Oklahoma not even thinking to pack jackets.
“It was really hard to ask for help,” she says.
“I have always been a person who worked. I never got public assistance or anything like welfare.”
She took up residence in a small, unplumbed cabin on her sister’s property. They had to walk down the hill to shower.
Her sister referred her to OlyCAP — Olympic Community Action Programs — for “a hand up, not a handout.”
‘Needed a boost’
At the OlyCAP office in Port Townsend, Archer met her case manager, Patti Cuddeback.
“When Susan and her family arrived, they weren’t prepared to set up even an apartment,” Cuddeback says.
“School was about to start, and they really needed a boost.
“I wrote them a voucher for OlyCAP’s Northwest Passage Thrift Shoppe in Port Hadlock, where they were able to get pots and pans and basic household items, and then helped them from the Peninsula Daily News’ Peninsula Home Fund with enough money to buy some new school clothes and coats from Wal-Mart.”
Today, Susan is upbeat and looking to the future.
“I just got an apartment last week and, thanks to the Quilcene food bank and other local help, we were able to have a turkey.
“We didn’t have anything like this kind of community support where I came from.
“We still have some things we have to deal with as a family, but I have entered a program to learn retail and customer service skills and will start work this week.”
“If it weren’t for Community Action and the Home Fund, I don’t know where we’d be.
“Thanks so much.”
Jefferson and Clallam
Peninsula Home Fund is seeking contributions for its annual holiday-season fund-raising campaign.
Founded in 1989, the fund is supported entirely by Jefferson and Clallam residents.
It is managed for the Peninsula Daily News by OlyCAP, the No. 1 emergency care agency on the North Olympic Peninsula.
* In the past 12 months, the fund has assisted more than 1,000 households.
* No money is deducted for administration or other overhead.
* All contributions are fully IRS tax-deductible.
* No money is diverted for administration or other overhead. All costs are absorbed by the PDN and OlyCAP.
* This is a “hand up, not a handout.” All instances of help are designed to get an individual or family through the crisis — and back on the path to self-sufficiency.
* Home Fund case managers work with each individual or family to develop a plan to become financially stable — and avoid a recurrence of the emergency that prompted aid from the fund.
* Donors’ personal information is kept confidential.
The PDN does not rent, sell, give or otherwise share your address or other information with anyone, or make any other use of it.
* Individuals, couples, businesses and school groups set a new record for contributions in 2003 — $77,608.
All of that money is expected to be spent by Dec. 31.
* Home Fund contributions are often used in conjunction with money from churches, service clubs and other donors, enabling OlyCAP to stretch the value of the contribution.
* To apply for a grant from the fund, phone OlyCAP at 360-452-4726 (Clallam County) or 360-385-2571 (Jefferson County).
* If you have any questions about the fund, contact John Brewer, Peninsula Daily News editor and publisher, at 360-417-3500.
How to donate
A gift of any size is welcome.
Peninsula Home Fund has never been a campaign of heavy hitters.
If you can contribute only a few dollars, please don’t hesitate because you think it won’t make a difference.
Every gift makes a difference, regardless of its size.
The PDN is publishing stories every Wednesday and Sunday through the end of December on how the Peninsula Home Fund operates.
Sunday’s story also lists the latest contributors.