First Step Awarded Grant for New Facility in Port Angeles
First Step executive director Nita Lynn holds a check for $15,000 in front of First Step’s facility expansion. The project is expected to be completed this fall.
(Port Angeles, WA) – First Step Family Support Center (www.firststepfamily.org), a United Way partner agency, is pleased to announce that the agency was recently awarded a $15,000 grant from the Norman Archibald Charitable Foundation in support of the agency’s facility expansion, expected to be completed in November. The Norman Archibald Charitable Foundation supports youth and child development programs, higher education and libraries, museums and the performing arts, family and social services, and federated giving programs in Washington State.
According to Nita Lynn, First Step Executive Director, “We are thrilled to receive this generous grant from the Norman Archibald Charitable Foundation. However, we are still working towards meeting our fundraising goals for this important project. If community members or businesses would like to contribute to the project, please contact our offices. We have a number of needs and several wonderful opportunities.”
With this grant, 2009 continue to be a year of growth for First Step, their clients, and the community. The retirement of a loan on the current First Step facility (325 E 6th Street, Port Angeles) and the subsequent purchase of the adjacent lot (323 E 6th Street) have presented a tremendous opportunity for the agency to increase their capacity to provide for the healthy development of families and children in the community. The expansion, a project five years in the making, will feature a much-needed infant and toddler childcare/early learning center, parent meeting and training rooms, a family reading & literacy center, a kitchen, and confidential counseling offices. This will substantially increase the agency’s capacity to expand current programs and to initiate new ones that the community has identified as fundamental for supporting and growing successful families and healthy children.
The agency has provided support and education services to thousands of local families as part of the agency mission to promote the successful development of children and parents in low-income families for over thirty years. In 2008, their staff of dedicated professionals served 4,478 primarily low-income adults and children. The goal of the agency is to provide innovative and family-centered programs to meet the needs of parents and their children in a respectful and responsible manner. First Step believes parents are critical to young children as they are their child’s protectors, first teachers and emotional home.
First Step successfully delivers a vast array of services to meet the mission and to meet the needs of today’s rural community. First Step’s programs and services include but are not limited to maternity support services, infant case management, drop-in centers, peer mentoring programs (teen parents), the Parents As Teachers Home Visiting Program, the Readiness to Learn Program, the Parent-Child Assistance Program, support groups (Postpartum Depression, Choosing Healthy Relationships, Father’s Support), vocational counseling, parenting classes, a smoking cessation program, and the First Books Program. The agency’s dynamic response to community need, coupled with solid follow through on its commitments has garnered First Step a reputation of excellence locally, statewide and nationally. In 2008, the agency received the Children’s Trust Foundation’s Janet Miller Award For Excellence in Family Support and in 1997 the Governor of Washington honored First Step with the Governor’s Child Abuse Prevention Award naming First Step “Best Community Program”. First Step’s services improve long-term social outcomes of low-income families with small children by providing a safe venue where they can build positive social support systems while gaining needed tools for thoughtful parenting.
First Step Family Support Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and proud United Way agency, has been serving the Olympic Peninsula since 1971. The agency mission is to provide for the healthy development of children and families.
Check us out online at www.firststepfamily.org!
