Volunteer spirit rises to meet challenging times

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Though it is as pretty as a postcard, Snohomish is facing some stiff challenges. It is not a wealthy community and lacks a diversified job base. It is a bedroom community where residents commute to Everett, Seattle or the Eastside.

Without a strong economy, the city's tax base is heavily dependent on property, not sales, taxes. And money is tight. It was the community that chipped in and built a public restroom downtown.

The school district is bursting at the seams, serving an area that extends far beyond city limits. Snohomish High will be the fourth-largest high school in the state next year. The district uses 32 portable buildings to house all its students, most of which are at elementary schools.

The school board is sorting its options, which range from double shifts to an estimated $60 million construction program.

Even Mother Nature occasionally torments Snohomish. The mighty Snohomish River, which nudges past the city's flank, rises up and floods every few years.

In 1990, a 20-foot-high wall of water pushed through a dike, knocking houses off their foundation and sweeping away everything in its path. The river backed up last year and filled the valley like a bathtub with a clogged drain.

But there is a resiliency to Snohomish. It has bounced back from economic and natural disaster so many times residents have developed a cult of volunteerism.

They built a food bank, a clothing bank and 60 units of low-income housing -- all with donated materials, labor and money. Not a dime came from government.

The food bank serves 1,100 people monthly. The clothing bank distributes tons of clothes annually, and the low-income apartments rent for half the price of market-rate units.

The Snohomish Affordable Housing Group has met for five years, yet its work is not over, said Bryce, a board member. The goal is 100 units of low-income housing, with funding from donations, traditional bank loans and donated or discounted labor and materials.

The whole town has helped, Bryce said. The Christ the King Lutheran Church recently bought playground equipment for a 42-unit building that opened this year.

Newell Dana, a spry 71-year-old, is credited with getting the food bank and housing projects started. "Instead of asking the government for help, we go by the assumption that we should do it, and it costs way less," Dana said.

One of his role models is 83-year-old Everett Olsen, a former State Patrol trooper who is working to build a teen center. Olsen said his partners are a group of kids called Youth Entertainment Society of Snohomish.

In his spare time, Olsen is a mentor to three boys, ages 13, 9 and 6. "The large percentage of kids out there are good," Olsen said. "They are looking for guidance and supervision."

Olsen is revered around town for his volunteer work. He led the preservation effort to save the city's historic homes and buildings, some from the late 1800s. A 30-block historic zone has encouraged renovation of the city's oldest homes. Olsen also helped create Pilchuck Park by taking an option on the land until the city and county could finance its purchase.

When City Hall considered selling Averill Field, the city's beloved baseball diamond, Dana, Olsen and others fought to save it.

The field was named for Earl "the Rock" Averill, a skinny kid who grew up in Snohomish and became a Hall of Fame baseball player, playing for the Cleveland Indians from 1929 to 1939. Averill bought the field for the city so there would always be a place for the kids to play ball. In recent years, the community chipped in $40,000 worth of improvements to Averill Field.

"You will not find very many communities better than this one," said Dana, who suffered a recent stroke but still cuts the grass around the city's park-and-ride lot. "I'm for getting things done," he said. "What else am I going to do? Sit around twiddling my thumbs?"

It is that attitude that sets Snohomish apart. Even the city's soccer league has the spirit. It raised enough money to buy the soccer fields it formerly leased from Ed Stocker, a local farmer whose family came to town in 1911.

Continued:

• Chris Ondras' story
• Inability to grow
• An historic opportunity
• A newcomer's observations