Baby Babble

A few weeks ago I spent a couple of hours talking with Ron and Colleen Starr, who manage Vine Maple Place here in Maple Valley.
What they do at Vine Maple amazes me. They take in homeless families and they provide transitional housing. Beyond that, they provide child advocates, financial classes, parenting classes, connection to educational opportunities and more for the single parents and even two parent families that seek them out.
This year is Vine Maple Place’s 10th anniversary. For a small, grassroots organization which is supported almost entirely by the community — churches, individuals, business — that is quite an accomplishment.
One of the very first stories I did for the Covington-Maple Valley Reporter was about Vine Maple Place back in September 2005.
I remember when I first sat down with Colleen Starr to learn about the organization, I was blown away by what they were doing, but I also could completely relate to the people they were helping.
Growing up, we very well could have sought out the help of VMP, because we always lived hand to mouth. We were on the verge of homelessness probably my entire childhood.
Carra Purvis, a staff member at VMP who was also part of the meeting, told me that many of the families have moved a number of times and the children had switched schools often, as well. I think I went to four or five different elementary schools. I begged my mom when I was in seventh grade not to move again until I got through high school. We moved twice while I was in middle school, but, I didn’t have to switch schools. I just rode my bike a bit further to get to where I was going, Highland Middle School in Bellevue.
There are times I wish we had been scooped up and transformed by something like a VMP when I was a kid but I think that no matter what, I have a great appreciation for what I did not have, which has given me a strong determination to provide for Lyla all the best that I can offer and so much more than what I had.
And while it is important to me to provide her with essential material possessions such as a nice roof over her head, decent clothes to wear and whatever extras a little girl might want — what is today’s equivalent of the Cabbage Patch Kid? — but I also want to give her the intangibles I didn’t have, like a stable home, two parents who love each other and their child, an extended family that basically gets along despite our differences and opportunities to live life, not just exist day to day.
I see that VMP is doing that for its families and that is why it is so easy for people in the community to support its mission. As of early February, they had helped 191 parents and children, not just survive but thrive by providing them a foundation in all the things they need to be successful in life.
Those were things I had to learn on my own, the hard way, from the mistakes of others as well as my own.
But, don’t take my word for it, read about it right here.