PORT ANGELES — Peninsula Behavioral Health is renaming a facility after the late Arlene Engel and will celebrate the change with a special ceremony Tuesday.
Second Street House, a 19-bed boarding home for the mentally ill, will be renamed the Arlene Engel Home in recognition of Engel’s devotion to mental health care, said Peter Casey, director of Peninsula Behavioral Health.
Tuesday’s ceremony will be at 2 p.m. at the boarding home at 138 E. Second St. in Port Angeles.
RSVPs are requested by Monday.
They can be made to Brenda Gilchrist at 360-457-0432, ext 227.
The public is invited to attend and learn more about both Engel, who received a lifetime achievement award in 2009, and the boarding home, which has provided 24-hour residential care to people with mental illness for more than 25 years, Casey said.
Engel, a Sequim resident, died Christmas morning at the age of 91 after suffering a stroke.
“We decided to name [the boarding home] after her because of her interest and support of the mentally ill,” Casey said.
“We thought it was an appropriate way to honor her for her livelong commitment to those with brain disorders.”
Casey described Engel as a “remarkable woman and an incredible volunteer who had a tremendous interest in making contributions to the community — especially for the mentally ill population.”
At the time of her death, Engel had been an Olympic Medical Center commissioner since 2002.
Contributions to community
She had served as president of Clallam County National Alliance for the Mentally Ill — or NAMI — for at least 15 years and had been a member of the advisory boards of the Peninsula Regional Support Network and Chemical Dependency/Mental Health, as well as the boards of Volunteers in Medicine of the Olympics, the Olympic Area Agency on Aging, Western State Hospital, the Clallam County Human Services Coordinating Committee and the Washington Administrative Code Mental Health Law Rewrite Committee.
She received the Clallam County Community Service Award in 1992, and in 2009, she was awarded the Clallam County Lifetime Achievement Award and the Red Cross Hero Award.
After her death, the Clallam County NAMI chapter developed the Arlene Engel Memorial Award in her honor.
Peninsula Behavioral Health, which changed its named from Peninsula Community Mental Health Center last month, is based at 118 E. Eighth St., Port Angeles.
The agency also has an office in Sequim at 490 N. Fifth Ave.
For more information about the organization, phone 360-457-0431 or visit www.peninsulabehavioral.org.