Youth and families gathered with city and county officials at Juanita Park Friday to celebrate Youth Eastside Services newest – and oldest – facility.
The new site is located in the historic Forbes family house that was originally built in 1905 and later sold to the City of Kirkland.
“For years, this place has been a home and I hope it continues to be a home for the future of our kids in this community,” said Patti Skelton-McGougan, executive director of YES, during the event.
With the help of the city, YES recently renovated the historic home that officials hope will be more family-friendly and accessible than the organization’s previous Rose Hill location.
“There was a need to be closer to kids and families in Kirkland,” McGougan added.
YES has served Eastside youth and families for more than 41 years, opening its original Rose Hill facility in 1981 and its original Bellevue facility in 1987 that has since been renovated. The organization opened a Family Resource Center in Redmond, a “one-stop shop” of several non-profit social service providers, McGougan said.
YES will also open a new Sammamish site next year in partnership with the City of Sammamish and Friends of Youth.
The organization, which was started by a group of community leaders who were concerned about the drug and alcohol abuse on the Eastside, has also responded to the growing and changing needs of Eastside youth and families through the services it provides. Those services include mental health counseling, drug and alcohol treatment and prevention, sexual abuse treatment, violence prevention and parenting support and education.
YES provides counseling and support services in more than 30 Eastside schools, and will now be able to expand its services through a new partnership with the University of Washington School of Social Work.
“Right now, the economy is so bad that a lot of times parents lose their jobs, have a lot of stress and don’t have transportation to bring their kids here for counseling,” said Jackie Bui, outreach counseling supervisor for YES who oversees the UW interns and provides community outreach.
With the new program, called the Learning Center, UW interns will provide after school support and counseling in more schools throughout the Lake Washington School District.
Deputy Mayor Joan McBride, who attended the event along with King County Council member Jane Hague, said the partnership with YES “speaks to our city’s commitment to Kirkland youth.”
During the event, Joanne Deligan Forbes gave tours of the house that she grew up in from the year she was born in 1939 until 1956 when the property was sold.
She was delighted that many of the features in her childhood home were still the same, including its original hardwood floors.
“We had a little stove that sat right there,” Joanne recalled as she pointed to an area in the kitchen. “We’d open it up and you could sit on it when it was cold in here.”
Loita and Dale Hawkinson, both volunteers at the Kirkland Heritage Society, snapped pictures as they followed Joanne through her old bedroom and the rest of the house and listened to her tell stories of her youth growing up there.
In a nook next to the kitchen, Joanne looked out the window at kids playing in the backyard and a KTUB (Kirkland Teen Union Building) band playing to celebrate the grand opening.
“Oh, I think it’s wonderful,” she said of the new facility. “I just love knowing that there’s going to be people and chatter and happiness and laughter and fun going on. This house needs to be used.”
