6: Cascadia

During our nearly 36 years of caring for children from stressed families, we’ve learned that the children in our care have four primary needs: safety, control, connection and worth. Home life for many of these children can be chaotic and uncertain – even traumatizing.

Gaining housing after years--sometimes decades--of homelessness can be a too-good-to-be true moment for some of our clients. They’ve often had close calls and have had people lie to and take advantage of them, so it is understandable. This is the story of one of the 1,500 people in DESC’s permanent supportive housing programs. We will call her Sonya, and she is seeing her apartment for the first time.

The Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group and our volunteer community have been monitoring Summer Chum on the Union River using a fish trap for 21 years. From mid-August to mid-October, these environmental stewards work 24/7 (yes, even through the night!) netting fish out of the trap, recording their catch, and releasing the adult salmon upriver where they will spawn. This is an important monitoring effort that allows HCSEG and partners to collect data on this population of Hood Canal Summer Chum.

Annie’s daughters were just five and seven when Annie moved from the San Francisco Bay area to Whidbey Island. Annie was struggling financially and felt she “couldn’t keep up with life.” She was evicted from her apartment and realized she “had to give in” and accept help from her family, who were already living on Whidbey Island.

Here's what some of our patients have to say about care they received at Planned Parenthood.

A 34-year-old patient: "Due to recent law changes in my state, I had to go out of state to finish my care. The staff was quick to notify me of the change, and able to schedule me right away, as well as offer financial aid for travel. I have nothing but praise for the staff and company as a whole for making sure I was able to obtain the care that I needed."