LYNNWOOD — The South Snohomish County non-profit agency Clothes For Kids is suffering.
The concern isn’t for more donations, funds or volunteers, it’s because all of the board members resigned recently after a disagreement with executive director Sharie Ennis.
Berrie Martinis, former president and chair of the board, said the board members reached a conclusion that Clothes For Kids needed to move to an all-volunteer agency and stop paying Ennis.
“We decided to make this move after we discovered that Operation School Bell (in Everett) provides a similar service to the rest of Snohomish County and on an all-volunteer basis,” Martinis said.
According to interim board president Jim Warner, Clothes For Kids pays Ennis an annual salary of $36,000 and also pays a bookkeeper. Until June, the agency also employed an office assistant and a grant writer, Martinis said.
“Getting rid of the office assistant came with such hostility from Sharie so it became apparent that if we did (take her salary away) we’d have a big fight,” Martinis said. “So we all just decided we need to make it all-volunteer against her wishes, otherwise have her take it without us.”
Martinis said knowing that Operation School Bell does a similar service to a much larger area with only volunteers made her feel like she couldn’t ask people for money for Clothes For Kids to pay someone’s salary.
“We also think that having Clothes For Kids might very well be preventing an all-volunteer organization from coming in and serving the children of this community … morally I can’t do it and that’s how the rest of the board felt also,” Martinis said.
The unanimous resignations came on the first day the Clothes For Kids shop opened for the school year in early September. Martinis said the timing was on purpose to be sure the doors would open and children were served.
Ennis has said the former board members resigned because of different ideas about the future of Clothes For Kids. On Sept. 28, Ennis said she wanted to concentrate on the more positive sides of the organization.
“There’s lots going on and the (interim) board is working well together …” Ennis said. “I’m excited and real happy, we’ve already served close to 500 children so far this year.”
The six interim board members include donors to Clothes For Kids and will serve until a permanent board is appointed, according to Warner.
Warner, who said he took the role as interim board president after stopping by to see Ennis and finding she needed some help, admitted that interim board is focused on serving children at what is often the agency’s busiest time, not what went on with the former board.
Warner said he appreciates the former board’s work and knows there was a difference of opinion with Ennis.
“The former board was filled with good people and people with good intentions sometimes need to go their separate ways,” Warner said. “The amount of work and responsibilities (Ennis) has now, she couldn’t do this for free.”
Ennis said she does what five people at Operation School Bell do and if she had to be a volunteer the program would have to downsize a great deal.
Warner said the interim board intends to rehire a grant writer.
Warner added that he and other interim board members want to look into what makes the most sense for the children served by Clothes For Kids, including examining the Operation School Bell organization.
“But I don’t think the former board was comparing apples to apples here,” he said, admitting he hasn’t yet looked into the details of Operation School Bell.
Sally Joy, an assistant public relations volunteer for Operation School Bell said that group provides free clothing to children referred by school officials from all over Snohomish County. Clothes For Kids serves in the same way to primarily Edmonds School District students.
Joy said Operation School Bell doesn’t serve Edmonds School District to avoid duplicating service with Clothes For Kids. “There’s an unwritten agreement there… ,” Joy said.
If Clothes For Kids closed, Joy said she isn’t sure whether Operation School Bell would expand to include Edmonds School District students.
Ennis said there have been discussions on finding someone to inherit her position if and when she retired but currently there is no plan for that transition.
Operation School Bell has a corps of 300 volunteers working out of the Everett location. It is the largest of eight philanthropic groups within the national Assistance League organization, Joy said. The directors of each group, bookkeepers, treasurer and office assistants and others are all volunteers, she said. They do have a grant writer who receives a portion of each grant brought in, she said. Joy also said there are a few paid support positions at the national headquarters office.
“I know it’s unbelievable but we do it all out of the goodness of our hearts,” Joy said.
Along with the grant writing, Operation School Bell raises money with an annual dinner and auction and through the Assistance League’s thrift store on Evergreen Way in Everett.
According to Martinis, Clothes For Kids was started about 20 years ago by the Cedar Valley Parent Teacher Association and was 100 percent volunteer at the time. In 1993, Ennis became a paid executive director after spearheading the effort to make the agency a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Martinis said.
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