Center Director Wants To Build Clients’ Self-Reliance

Sat., Aug. 5, 1995

The new acting director of the Valley Center for Sharing wants to develop educational programs that will help the center’s low-income clients take charge of their lives.

“The goal is to help clients become self-sufficient,” said Barbara Olson. “We want to offer budgeting classes, nutrition classes, programs that will help them better utilize the money they have. We want to get them off public assistance. Most of our clients don’t want to be there in the first place.”

Olson, 39, is a former Army officer who moved to the Valley last August after her husband, also an Army officer, retired.

She was hired last December as administrative assistant to Glynis Hull, who resigned in June after four years as the center’s executive director.

The Valley Center board of directors plans to conduct a search this fall for someone to permanently fill the director’s job. Sharon O’Brien, board chairwoman, said Olson will be a candidate. O’Brien said the board expects to make a decision about the hire by the end of the year.

Olson, meanwhile, is overseeing completion of a major addition to the Valley Center’s building at 11922 E. First. The $209,000 addition, which will house the center’s clothing bank and food bank, will more than double the size of the facility.

She also is running the Valley Center’s annual Smart Start program, which collects school supplies from community donors and distributes them to needy children attending Valley schools.

Olson also will coordinate the center’s fall fund-raising campaign, which begins in October.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Smart Start The Valley Center for Sharing’s Smart Start program helps needy kids get off to a good start in the classroom by providing them with basic back-to-school kits. Last year, nearly 700 Valley school children received backpacks, notebooks, paper, pencils, pens, erasers, rulers and the like, through the program. Barbara Olson, acting director of the Valley Center, expects to help even more kids this year. Anyone wishing to donate school supplies can drop them off at the Valley Center weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Cash donations to the program can be mailed to: Valley Center for Sharing, 11922 E. First, Spokane, WA 99206. Valley Camp Fire members will be collecting school supplies for the Smart Start program today and next Friday and Saturday at the Fred Meyer store at Sprague and Sullivan, the Payless store on Argonne and at the Albertsons store at Liberty Lake.

This sidebar appeared with the story: Smart Start The Valley Center for Sharing’s Smart Start program helps needy kids get off to a good start in the classroom by providing them with basic back-to-school kits. Last year, nearly 700 Valley school children received backpacks, notebooks, paper, pencils, pens, erasers, rulers and the like, through the program. Barbara Olson, acting director of the Valley Center, expects to help even more kids this year. Anyone wishing to donate school supplies can drop them off at the Valley Center weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Cash donations to the program can be mailed to: Valley Center for Sharing, 11922 E. First, Spokane, WA 99206. Valley Camp Fire members will be collecting school supplies for the Smart Start program today and next Friday and Saturday at the Fred Meyer store at Sprague and Sullivan, the Payless store on Argonne and at the Albertsons store at Liberty Lake.