All Posts in "Pat Jenkins"

Understatement: ‘I’m not going to do a lot of playing retirement’

Ann Huber and her late husband, John, originally became licensed foster parents to provide in-home respite care for a developmentally disabled daughter of a friend. One phone call later, that decision would turn into a lifelong passion.

“I got a call to see if I would do respite care for a little girl from Issaquah,” Ann said. “We quickly realized that her long-term placement wasn’t a safe environment and reported it to Child Protective Services. Because we were some of the only adults she knew, we were asked to take her in long-term.”

That led Huber to Treehouse, a non-profit organization based in Seattle that provides support for more than 7,000 Washington children in foster care.

“My first involvement with Treehouse was shopping in their free store” that provides clothing, school supplies, books, toys and other essentials for foster kids, Huber said.

Ann and John would go on to provide care for infants and toddlers with special needs in their own home for 12 years. When they decided they were no longer able to provide 24/7 care, Ann’s work with Treehouse’s free store began. She is now one of the organization’s most dedicated volunteers.

“As we were moving into grandparenting the two little boys who had been in our care, I checked out volunteering in the store,” Ann said. “I know from my own personal experience how essential the resources are that Treehouse provides. The money foster parents get from the state for these kids comes nowhere near covering some of the most basic expenses.”

Now in her eighth year at Treehouse, Ann has contributed 12,000 hours volunteering. That total stands out even at an organization that prides itself on more than 2,500 volunteers (many over the age of 55) lending a hand annually. With more tenure than most of the full-time staff, she’s taken on more and more responsibility through the years. She now manages the entire infant and toddler department of the store, which is located on the first floor of Seattle building that also houses the Treehouse offices.

“I’m not a person who’s going to do a lot of playing all day in retirement. I’ve always been better at working than playing,” Ann said. “This is a great outlet for what I really like to spend my time doing. One of the fun things is being in the environment with primarily younger people. Having relationships with young people that aren’t family is really cool, and everyone at Treehouse is committed to this mission.”

Ann’s dedication to children in foster care and her passion for helping comes directly from her belief—one shared by Treehouse—that the community as a whole is responsible for all of its children. For Ann, volunteering is a way to directly live out this belief and make an impact on the lives of youth and their caregivers.

“To provide them with the best shopping experience and the best stuff when they shop, that’s what keeps me going,” Ann said. “We’re changing our community in a very positive way. Every kid who launches successfully into adulthood as opposed to repeating the cycle they were born into makes our community better.”

The store carries clothing for all sizes of children, from infants to teenagers. Foster caregivers and older foster kids can pick out whatever they need. The public can donate new and like-new clothes and supplies at the back of the store building at 2100 24th Ave. S. Information about donations and other ways of being involved with Treehouse is available at treehouseforkids.org and 206-767-7000.

Founded in 1988 by social workers, Treehouse addresses the needs of foster kids for school and other essential support. One of its academic programs, called Graduation Success, has education specialists who help middle school and high school students in nine counties (including Pierce and King) develop graduation and post-graduation plans.

 

Ann Huber is a volunteer with Treehouse, a Seattle-based non-profit organization that supports Washington foster children.
Pat Jenkins by — June 4, 2020 in Spotlight

A clinical trial is underway to evaluate whether the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, given together with the antibiotic azithromycin, can prevent hospitalization and death from coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. medical research agency, is sponsoring the trial. Teva Pharmaceuticals is donating medications for the study.

The trial will enroll approximately 2,000 adults across the country who have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 and are experiencing fever, cough and/or shortness of breath. Many will be 60 years of age or older or have serious complications such as cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive short-term treatment with either hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin or matching placebos.

People with HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) and pregnant and breastfeeding women also are eligible to participate in the study, officials said.

As of mid-May, there were no treatments of COVID-19 approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“We urgently need a safe and effective treatment. Repurposing existing drugs is an attractive option because these medications have undergone extensive testing, allowing them to move quickly into clinical trials and accelerating their potential approval for COVID-19 treatment,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of NIAID. “Although there is anecdotal evidence that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin may benefit people with COVID-19, we need solid data from a large randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine whether this experimental treatment is safe and can improve clinical outcomes.”

Effective May 13, the World Health Organization reported 4.1 million cases and 287,399 deaths from COVID-19 worldwide. That included the 1.3 million confirmed cases and 82,246 deaths in the United States.

Pat Jenkins by — May 26, 2020 in News

A cooperative housing community for seniors and retirees is in the planning stages in Puyallup.

The Village Cooperative of Puyallup, proposed for a vacant, four-acre site at the corner of 39th Avenue Southwest and 17th Street Southwest near the Fruitland Grange, will include 57 homes in a three-story building. The dwellings will have one-bedroom and two-bedroom floorplans and range in size from 900 square feet to 1,600 square feet.

The Minnesota-based parent company of the project is Real Estate Equities Development, which has developed 40 Village Cooperative projects with a combined 2,200 homes in urban and suburban areas of the western and midwestern U.S.

In cooperative communities, residents own equity shares of the development through a non-profit co-op corporation. The corporation holds title to the entire property, including dwellings, and assumes the mortgage, tax and other obligations necessary to finance and operate the facility. Residents elect a governing board of directors from among the co-op residents/members to oversees policies, spending and operations of the cooperative.

The Puyallup project is the second Village Cooperative community in Washington, following one in Olympia that was announced last spring. The co-op communities are also in seven other states—Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Pat Jenkins by — May 26, 2020 in Personal Finance/Consumers

What consumers spend to buy everyday items has risen 2 percent in the past year. With incomes not keeping pace, Americans need to be more careful than ever choosing where they live. And here’s some good news for Washingtonians: Your state is one of the easiest on the pocketbook.

TheSeniorList.org, an online source of consumer information for boomers and older adults in the U.S. and Canada, has released the results of a national study on the most and least affordable states. The study used the latest data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics on income and expenses like housing, utilities, groceries, healthcare, clothing, and gas for vehicles. Here is some of what came out of it:

  • The 10 most affordable states, in order, are District of Columbia, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, Washington, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Mississippi. Based on the percentage of average income that residents spend, Washington is sixth at 74.7 percent. D.C.’s leading percentage is 69.8 percent, followed closely by Arizona’s 70.5 percent.
  • The least affordable state is South Dakota, where the average resident spends more (100.9 percent) per year than they take in
  • The South is the most affordable region, with an average of 77 percent of income eaten by expenses, while the Northeast is the most expensive with 85 percent.

And how do the states compare to each other when it comes to how much consumers spend vs. how much workers earn? Which states are most affordable, and where do people spend the most on things like housing, groceries, clothing and healthcare? In other words, in which state will the average paycheck go the farthest?

Pat Jenkins by — May 26, 2020 in News