SMOKEY POINT — Commuters, long-haul truck drivers, families on vacation.
Theresa Jones and Paul Taylor have seen all kinds of travelers in their years working at the Smokey Point rest stop.
Jones, Taylor and other members of the Sisco Heights Community Club volunteer their time staffing the rest area near milepost 208 off southbound I-5. They provide coffee and lemonade, cookies and donuts, directions, and sometimes just human interaction for lonely travelers.
The state Department of Transportation allows community groups to reserve buildings at rest stops to provide snacks and coffee for travelers. The Sisco Heights Community Club works at the rest stop for a few days at a time, five or six times a year. This stint, they are working the rest stop from Labor Day through Friday afternoon.
Jones, 75, who lives in Smokey Point, usually ends up with shifts no one else wants, often working 12 hours at a time. She doesn’t mind.
“I like it. Just to be with people; talking with them, joking with them. It’s interesting,” she said.
She offered a kind smile with each steaming cup of coffee she handed through the window Wednesday morning.
Jim Brugger of Williams Lake, B.C., stopped to get directions to the nearest Walmart and a good seafood place.
“It’s my wife’s birthday,” he said. “She likes to shop.”
He and his wife had spent two weeks in Ferndale before heading to Snohomish County.
Jeri Liberty of Oak Harbor and her son, Brandon, 10, were on their way to Seattle Children’s Hospital to visit Brandon’s older brother, Charles.
Some were in a hurry, others stopped to chat with Jones and Taylor. Most dropped change or a buck into the donation jar set up at the window.
The money goes toward charitable causes supported by the club: the Everett Gospel Mission, local food banks, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. the Stillaguamish Senior Center and sometimes animal shelters.
The group raises has raised as much as $2,300 volunteering at the rest stop, said Taylor, the club’s president.
He remembers the time when volunteers had to bring their own heaters because there were none in the little building. And before the building appeared in 1989, volunteers set up in a shack.
Times may have changed, but travelers pass through now just like they did then.
“It’s kind of nice to meet people this way,” Taylor said.
Katya Yefimova: 425-339-3452, kyfimova@heraldnet.com
To learn more about Sisco Heights Community Club, call Paul Taylor at 360-659-5498. The club accepts food, clothing and other donations to support its work with local charities.
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