By Sharon Salyer
Herald Writer
Community Voice Mail, a program that has allowed more than 500 domestic violence victims, homeless people and other area residents who can’t afford phones a way to stay in touch with jobs, doctors and family members, was approaching its first birthday — and perhaps its last — on Oct. 23.
Desperate for funding, and with a deadline so short it must have felt like Cinderella seeing the clock strike midnight, the head of Volunteers of America, which staffs the program, called a local foundation to ask for a favor.
"In all honesty, it is outside our grant guidelines," Mary Sievers, executive director of the EverTrust Foundation established by Everett Trust Bank, said of the request for help. "I brought it to the board just because it was such a valuable piece of our community."
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When told that the foundation board might not have time to consider the plea before its January meeting, Gilbert Saparto, Volunteers of America’s executive director, told Sievers he couldn’t wait.
"I imagine the decision had to be made by the end of November, if they had the funding in place" to continue the program, Sievers said.
The local foundation annually distributes $450,000 to area family, youth, education, health, art and low-income housing projects.
"We spent a lot of time looking at the pros and cons: How does it benefit the community?" Sievers said.
The funding proposal included testimonials of people who had used the electronic message service, accessible from any phone, as their first step to getting a job, an easy and sure way for potential employers to connect with those without phones.
"The board looked at it the same way I did," she said. The program "desperately needed that shot in the arm. I don’t think they could have survived."
The deal was sealed for what essentially is an emergency, one-year grant. "Board president Margaret Bavasi and I were thrilled," Sievers recalled. "We had smiles on our faces."
The $20,000 grant from the EverTrust Foundation was the last piece in a fund-raising puzzle to keep the program in existence for another year. Other contributors include $10,000 from United Way, $2,500 from the Everett Rotary, $5,000 from the city of Everett, $5,000 from the Seattle-based Medina Foundation, and $1,000 from the Windermere Foundation, said Bill Brackin, program director of the voice-mail program.
The funding crisis was triggered when a federal grant was denied. "We were at least $25,000 short," Brackin said.
"The EverTrust grant was our last straw," he said. "If it hadn’t come through, we probably would not have been able to continue the program."
Clients access a system that acts like a home answering machine, he said. "Their voice is on it." Each user gets his or her own individual phone number that can be put on resumes or given to potential landlords.
For those living in shelters, "it takes away the stigma and allows them to be treated like any other applicant," Brackin said.
When it kicked off in January, Snohomish County was the 35th area in the nation to establish community voice mail. A similar program began in Seattle in 1991, the first such program in the nation.
Money to keep the program going next year will mean 600 people at a time can use the electronic message service.
Those who need community voice mail are signed up through one of 50 local social service programs helping coordinate the program, such as Pathways for Women/YWCA and Catholic Community Services.
You can call Herald Writer Sharon Salyer at 425-339-3486
or send e-mail to salyer@heraldnet.com.
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