Community ties are close in small towns

By JACK HOPKINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Residents of the Fall City-Preston area enjoy the comfortable feeling of being part of a laid-back, close-knit, caring community.

"I like the smallness of it. You know a lot of people," says Debbie Arenth.

She credits Fall City Elementary School administrators and staff members with nurturing the town's community spirit and keeping its focus on helping one another. "They encourage you to come down to the school and walk into the classrooms. People get used to seeing each other and that causes an energy that builds on itself.

"We still go to the annual spaghetti feed at the elementary school even though (Drew) hasn't been a student there for years."

Fall City and Preston share that sense of community spirit.

Connie Brown lives in Redmond but works as a teacher in a cooperative pre-school program sponsored by Bellevue Community College in the historic Preston Field House across from the site of the old Preston Mill.

Most of the 24 children who attend the preschool come from Fall City and Preston, and their parents are deeply involved in its activities.

"I love the parents and families in the Snoqualmie Valley," says Brown. "They are really interested in their children and involved in their community. They seem to be more grounded and a little more down to earth."

Preston Baptist Church pastor Gary Moen has experienced the same feeling of community since his arrival in town almost 12 years ago.

"We moved here from Minnesota by way of Idaho. And I had an immediate feeling of being 'home' as soon as I came here. There was a warm, loving feeling that permeated the community," says Moen.

That hasn't changed in the ensuing years, he adds. "The people here still care for each other. And if someone is hurting or needs help, they still rally together."

The challenge will be to keep that community spirit as the population swells.

"The growth is coming our way," says Moen. "People are trying to slow it, but it's coming."