By Terry McGuire

It took Jan and Calvin and their seven-month-old baby, Quortez, two days by bus to reach Seattle from Lawrence, Kan. They were to stay with one of his relatives until they got on their feet. But the arrangement didn’t work out. And just a week or two after their arrival, the couple was on the brink of being homeless.

Using a list from the welfare office, Jan called several shelters, only to discover they were full. Then she called the First Avenue Family Center in downtown Seattle, and the picture began to brighten.

The center arranged housing for them at an emergency shelter operated by a Ballard church. The center also provided young Quortez with baby clothes, diapers and formula, helped set up medical appointments for the family, and went to work searching for long-term housing where they will receive counseling and employment help.

As of last Monday, Jan, 20, and Calvin, 21, who didn’t want their last names used, were waiting to hear if their applications for long-term housing had been accepted.

“We are their first step,” said Juanita Chapman, First Avenue Family Center administrator. While “we don’t have a facility to house them, we offer immediate services in terms of food, shelter, clothing, showers — all of the basic needs. And then we offer assistance with all the resources they need to get where they need to go” to improve their situation.

The family center is marking its second anniversary this month. It is operated by the 36-year-old First Avenue Service Center, a private, nonprofit organization of which archdiocesan Deacon Terry Marcell is executive director.

The two-year-old family center was started in response to then-Mayor Paul Schell’s warning that the new face of homelessness in the city was increasingly becoming that of families with children.

So far this year, the family center has served 170 families.

The center’s clients have landed on the brink of homelessness because they have no one to turn to, said Nancy Batayola, the family center’s case manager. “They don’t have any other support or resources — we’re it,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve found one person here who has a family they can go back to.”

Some of them have been victims of parental or spousal abuse, while others suffer from learning disabilities, mental health problems or drug abuse, or they simply lack the skills to earn a livable wage.

“Oftentimes we don’t know for some time what their real story is,” Chapman said. “But as they come to trust us, they know they are really going to be helped” and they open up.

The center, open weekdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., is aided by a psychologist, who volunteers his services once a week.

In addition to the basic services and referrals to other agencies, the center provides parents with a place to make phone calls and receive mail.

Within the center’s brightly-colored walls, the children can play, take naps, get homework help, celebrate birthdays and holidays, and hang up their achievements on the refrigerator, just like at a permanent home. The center also helps enroll the children in schools that offer programs for homeless kids.

Over its two-year history, the center has served two-parent families of up to 13 people, families headed by single moms and dads, even families headed by grandmothers, forced out of their one-bedroom apartments when the grandchildren landed on their doorsteps. It’s one of only a few local shelters that takes in families with teens, Deacon Marcell said.

He noted that when parents are homeless, they don’t really have time to love their children because they’re so “stressed looking for a place to live.

“We buy them some time so that they can love their children in a traditional way.”

The First Avenue Service Center receives no United Way funding or government monies, Deacon Marcell said. It relies on private donations from individuals, churches, foundations and special events. It also relies on approximately 200 volunteers who donate their time. For more information, call (206) 441-8405.

The young mother, Jan, said last week that she hopes the center will be the first step toward stability for her family. “We want to get stable housing...get jobs, find a daycare for Quortez and eventually get off cash assistance and food stamps.”

Every other week, the Knitting Knerds Club meets during lunch to fashion clothing and personal accessories out of yarn.

But this group of needle artists doesn’t fit the stereotype of rocking chair grandmas with laps full of materials. Its members are teenage girls, students at Holy Names Academy in Seattle.

Now in its second year, the club is believed to be one of the few high school-based knitting clubs in the area. Holy Names math teacher Judy Hall, who started knitting when she was nine, founded the club with the hopes that her students will discover — as she did — that “knitting is for life.”

It’s a craft that teaches patience, brings serenity and promotes self-sufficiency, she said. It also promotes service to others, she said, noting that the girls are asked to knit something for charity, such as a scarf, hat, socks or a blanket. The items will be distributed to families served by Providence House, the Sacred Heart Family Shelter and other organizations.

Hall launched the club after encountering several students who had paid from $25 to $30 for scarves that they could’ve knitted themselves for the price of the materials and their time.

“It’s a casual, drop-in, drop-out type club” with almost 60 members, Hall said. “There’s no roll call. We just help each other out.” Several donors have even made it possible for the club to offer funds for field trips or for materials for students who can’t afford them.

Club members see knitting as another outlet for their creative side. They said it also helps them relax amid the academic pressures at their national Blue Ribbon school. Some teachers even allow them to knit in class.

Sophomore Lesli Redenbaugh was attracted to the club because her beloved great-grandmother, who died a year-and-a-half ago, was a knitter. “She couldn’t teach me” because of ill health, Redenbaugh said.

Last summer, Redenbaugh was too young to land a job, so she began knitting scarves that she sold at the offices where her parents work. She made $400. She also has crafted slippers as Christmas presents for her family.

“I love doing art,” she said. And knitting “is just another way to express your creativity.”

Fellow sophomore Colleen Fewel, agrees. “If you’re creative, it’s fun to do a purse for yourself,” she said. “I’ve done hats I’ve donated to the homeless...I’m working on a scarf now...and I want to design a sweater.”

At last week’s meeting, club members were further inspired in the craft — and in life in general — by guest speaker Sarah Hauschka, a member of the Seattle Knitters Guild and its former program chair.

Hauschka is not only a longtime knitter. Last month, at age 60, she attained her private pilot’s license. “I’d been sitting around knitting and I knew I needed to get off my duff and start a new project,” she said.

Her second solo flight was from Payne Field in Everett to Arlington Municipal Airport, where a woman she had met at a “knit-out” was waiting with a station wagon load of hats she had knitted for people in need.

Hauschka delivered the 30 hats and an impressive afghan to the Knitting Knerds Club, knowing they would be forwarded to the right charity.

Agnes Jacobson, principal of St. John School in Seattle, garnered her second national honor this year when she received the 2002 National Distinguished Principal Award last Friday at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. The award is jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

Last April, she received a regional “Distinguished Principal Award” from the National Catholic Educational Association.

An educator for 25 years and a member of St. Hubert Parish in Langley, Jacobson was one of five private school leaders in the country to receive the National Distinguished Principal Award, which recognizes a commitment to academic and social excellence in the school and outstanding contributions to the community. She was nominated by Father Stephen Rowan, the archdiocese’s vicar for education and superintendent of Catholic schools.

Jacobson “is gifted in calling forth the best in everyone,” said fellow principal Kris Brown of Holy Rosary School in Seattle.

She is “constant in her affirmation of students and teacher achievement,” said St. John teacher Jody Desclos, but “she also is firm in her reminders to all of us to stretch and engage our students in new opportunities and experiences.”

Among other achievements, Jacobson is credited with improving test scores at St. John’s, revising the curriculum, extending the school day and emphasizing direct instruction. She also has worked to keep teachers’ salaries competitive.

A brunch in her honor will be held Sunday at noon in Egan Hall, across the street from the school.