Category: Spotlight Article

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A Whales’ Tale: Part I

by Evie Maxwell, Staff Writer


While gray whales don’t have long-term family relationships, they do make long-term friends. Here a pair of friends feed together in Puget Sound.
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Photo by Justine Buckmaster
Puget Sound Express

There was a time when whales roamed the northern Puget Sound in abundance. Humpbacks, gray whales, a wide variety of orcas, minke, and others could be found feeding and playing along our shorelines. So plentiful were whales that some indigenous communities built their ways of life, and worship, around the great creatures.

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Jefferson Land Trust: Protecting Places That Matter for 30+ Years

Did you know that there is a local grassroots, community-powered, nonprofit organization that’s been working for more than three decades to protect places that matter in Jefferson County? Working with the community, Jefferson Land Trust has protected almost 18,000 acres of forestland, farmland, wild places, and open spaces that sustain the people, plants, and animals who share this beautiful corner of the world.

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Recovery Café

by Bekka Bloom, Guest Writer

At Dove House’s Community Services Offices at 1045 10th St., we provide client services and classes for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other types of crime. Dove House’s Recovery Café helps clients reconnect with the community and cultivate new healthy relationships in a safe environment. A positive peer support network can be vital to healing, rebuilding, and recovering from the traumas of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other crimes which often intersect with mental illness, homelessness, addiction, and other life challenges.

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How To Make a Town Stronger

by Ben Bauermeister, Guest Writer

Finding Strength

We hear so much about resilience, innovation, and our social fabric these days. How do we keep our communities strong? How do we support the new ideas that may hold the keys to our collective future? How can we lower the walls that divide us and accelerate the passion that drives us? All of these questions swirl around in our minds and conversations—but action is so hard to initiate. The hurdles seem so high to achieve true systemic change. These are all the questions that we were asking ourselves and others when we formed StrongerTowns and created a nonprofit social impact incubator for rural solutions.

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Our County Library: How It Grew, What It Offers

by Dr. Tamara R. Meredith, Jefferson County Library District Director

Dr. Tamara Meredith has been the Director of the Jefferson County Library District since 2017. She has worked in library administration and education for over 17 years, including public, school, and academic libraries in Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington.

Home Library Service

Our Home Library Service is a free, personalized home delivery service for county residents who are unable to visit the library due to age, disability or illness. Caregivers are also eligible.

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Chimacum Backpacks for Kids: ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas’

by Jan Eddy, Board Member and Treasurer, Chimacum Backpacks for Kids

Chimacum Backpacks for Kids, a weekend feeding program for at-risk Chimacum students (also known as “FOOD4KIDS”), packs shelf-stable, commercially packaged items such as macaroni and cheese, applesauce, pudding, granola bars, instant oatmeal, cans of tuna, pasta, chicken noodle soup, chili, milk, and many other small-sized and kid-friendly items of food—items a child can easily open, heat in a microwave, and consume with limited utensils or dishware.

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Shelter From the Storm — A Program of the Community Boat

by Kat Mullins, Guest Writer

“I’m looking for a place to live.” If the young people of Jefferson County had a nickel for each time they heard a friend express the need for affordable housing, they might just be able to pay their rent. I sought out an internship at the Community Boat Project in Port Hadlock to be a part of the solution to our local housing crisis while acquiring carpentry skills to aid me in my future job search. As a young farm worker in the neighborhood myself, I am acutely aware of the obstacles to finding suitable living spaces. Like so many people who come to our area to learn and work, I have experienced the struggle to find housing within my budget. The Community Boat Project’s Shelter from the Storm program provided me with an opportunity to make a difference while learning the basics of construction from other, service-oriented people.

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