Our Success Stories

It’s been nearly five years since Chandelle Frick and her husband drove into Malden to find the deck of their home in flames and their neighbor’s home and the entire block of houses in front of them burned to the ground. The wind was whipping, and embers the size of dinner plates were igniting new spots as they landed. “It was like a war zone,” said Frick, the incoming city clerk for Malden and executive director of the Pine Creek Community Long-Term Restoration Organization. “Propane tanks and ammunition were going off. The smoke was thick. It was so scary.” Fortunately,…

Twenty to 25 miles doesn’t sound like a long way to travel…except when it’s a trip to the doctor, and transportation isn’t a sure thing. That’s the dilemma hundreds of residents in Garfield, Elberton, Farmington and the surrounding area were facing until Whitman Hospital & Medical Clinics and the public hospital district joined forces with Partners for Rural Washington to open a new clinic in Garfield. “It was really hard not to have a clinic in town,” said Tammy Howard, now retired business manager for the public hospital district in Garfield. “Now the clinic is open 3 days a week…

Aaron Davis vividly remembers the first time he saw the inside of the Oakesdale Public Swimming Pool building. It was late 2020, and the five-year Oakesdale resident had just attended his first meeting of the Oakesdale Park and Recreation District committee. He agreed to take on primary responsibility for the facility. It was a cold, dark winter night, and the power in the pool building had been shut o, but he turned on his phone flashlight and opened the door. “It was like walking into a haunted house,” he said. Originally constructed in the 1920s, the building’s flat roof had…