By Sharon Salyer
Herald Writer
For Stacey Hesterly, Sept. 11 was a reveille, a muted bugle call to action.
Although earlier this year she had completed her training at the Center for Battered Women, “I kind of procrastinated.” She didn’t follow through to actually volunteer her time. “My training manual was sitting right there on the table.”
“After the 11th, it hit me,” the Everett resident said. “I got inspired. I thought, OK, maybe I can do something, but it’s got to be locally. I know people in New York need help, but people here do, too.”
Local social service agencies report they have seen a similar boomerang effect with both volunteers and donations. Public attention, and money, first focusing almost exclusively on helping families in New York and Washington, D.C., is now returning to causes closer to home.
“Oh my gosh, it’s a passion,” Hesterly said of her efforts to encourage others to volunteer or donate to local groups and causes. “My mother sent $100 to New York. I prompted my family to donate to the food bank here.”
She said she understands people feel bombarded with requests for money for good causes.
“If we can give money, give money,” she said. “If we can give time, give two hours of time. If everybody could do that in the name of New York, that would help.”
Life’s unpredictably – what she believes is one of the lessons of Sept. 11 – echoed her own life experience.
Her husband died unexpectedly the previous October, leaving her a widow and the sole provider for her two small children.
“I had to swallow my pride and ask the food bank for help at Christmas,” she said, noting one reason for her passion for local causes.
“It was awesome to donate (to the food bank) this year. I know too many people in my apartment complex who can’t feed their kids, with the layoffs and the hard times. That’s not OK.”
There’s an even deeper emotional tie between the 37-year-old single mom and the Center for Battered Women. She and her late husband once turned to the center for help with domestic violence problems.
They separated, received professional counseling and spent the last year of his life reunited and “best friends again.”
“They changed my husband’s and my life,” she said of the help she received.
In fact, it was her late husband who encouraged her to volunteer at the battered women’s center.
“We should give back,” she remembers him saying. “You’d be good at that.”
“That was the sound bite in my head for a long time,” Hesterly said. “On Sept. 11, I said, ‘I have to do it today.’ “
You can call Herald Writer Sharon Salyer at 425-339-3486
or send e-mail to salyer@heraldnet.com.
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