Board Candidates

Jade Souza is a lifelong Olympia resident and longtime community activist. She is self-employed as a labor and postpartum doula with MotherLove Doula Services. She has worked with many organizations in Olympia including POWER, Safeplace, Community Youth Services, Bread and Roses, Olympia Friends Meeting, Olympia Free School, and the Birth Attendants Prison Doula Project. She lives with her partner Jared and three children Stella, Ezra, and Solace. Mothering is her hardest job and greatest happiness.

Penny Baker is an Olympia resident who is committed to POWER's mission, particularly the recognition by society that caregiving work is among the most difficult and honorable work one can do. She holds a post-graduate degree in IT and worked in that field for many years, oblivious to the true state of many families in this country. That all changed in 2003 when she gave birth to twins, one of whom has special needs. After her marriage failed a short time later, she applied for public assistance. The stark contrast in the attitudes of many of the people she subsequently met stunned her. She says, "Before my twins were born, many people just assumed that I was intelligent, industrious, and a good person based on what I did all day. Afterwards, many assumed that I must be stupid, lazy, and morally deficient based on the fact that I was on public assistance and struggling to care for my twins all by myself." She believes that these attitudes have their root in the devaluing of caregiving work and that they must be changed for the sake of every person in this country.

My name is Selene Barnes. I am a single mother of 2 girls, a second grader and a 4th grader. Over the course of the years I had heard about welfare (AFDC) and I remember welfare reform. When all of these policies when into play, I didn't have children, I had a fairly good income and had no understanding about any "safety net" until I found myself on maternity leave and not enough vacation/ sick leave to take the time off. That is when I heard and understood TANF and how awful people were being treated seeing how bad I was being treated myself. So I decided that no one deserves to be treated this way and I wanted to learn more about it and do something about it. So I became a Community Organizer and did outreach in Snohomish County. I also talked to my legislators and did what I could do to get some laws passed. Now I am finding that in spite of some of the good things WROC/POWER has done our federal/ state legislators have torn them apart. I am believing that the only way things can change is to bring more awareness to poverty, the under unemployed and change the bigger picture.

My name is Wendy Davis. I grew up in Eastern Washington. My mother was a struggling single parent on welfare for most of my childhood. I grew up and got married, was a married mother for 12 years, then got divorced. I moved to the Olympia area in 2001 from Seattle and am now a single mom with two teenagers and a 4 year old. I have been navigating through the welfare system since my youngest was born and I still don't fully understand why it is so complicated. I have had to make difficult choices in the past 4 years that I never thought I would have to make regarding my youngest child. I have come to realize that poverty is something that we are all vulnerable to and there needs to be more awareness about it and respect for it. The biggest problem that I have with the current welfare system is how recipients are treated as "less than" and given whatever treatment the caseworkers feel like giving them according to their mood and personality. This is not right and I wish to change the attitudes and the rules to improve consistency.

Children are my biggest priority because I believe that if they are made to feel important by us, they will expect to be treated with respect as adults. Children are the core of society and make the world a better place. I have volunteered and worked for the public school system in Thurston County over the past 10 years and have several years of experience as a preschool teacher in Seattle. I am currently a student at Evergreen and have volunteered at POWER for a month and a half as part of an internship. I work in the POWER office about 10 hours a week. Advocacy and outreach are my two favorite activities at POWER.

When I began going to college in 2006, my son was 1 year old and my goal was to become a psychologist and make lots of money. Three years later, my goal is to help people and to make a difference in their lives. I plan to start a nonprofit organization for single parents in the future to support the lifestyle of those families. I wish to diminish the stereotypes of single parents and make it a social norm rather than an "alternative lifestyle".

I am proud to be part of an organization that fights for the rights of those who are not heard by our welfare system. The voices of the poor are just as important, if not more so, as the voices of the rich.

Julie Montgomery became a POWER volunteer soon after moving to Olympia almost three years ago. Her experience includes working with Job Corps, AIDS service organizations, neighborhood based work training programs, and after-school enrichment projects. She brings volunteer coordination, case management, research, evaluation and grant-writing skills. Julie thinks that the work of parents and other caretakers is often stressful and undervalued. She believes strongly in the mission and goals of POWER and is honored to work with an organization that's members are so innovative, intelligent and passionate.

Jennifer Roberts has volunteered with WROC and POWER for a long time. She loves the work of POWER. She knows that poverty is not a choice, it happens to you. She has gained amount of incredible amount knowledge since she started volunteering. She wants to continue to help in the fight to eradicate poverty. She also helped with the founding of POWER. Some of her skills include fundraising, outreach, legislative education, and databasing.

Bryn Houghton has been a POWER/WROC volunteer for six years, and a volunteer with the Coalition for Low-Income Power (CLIP) for two years, Bryn served on POWER's interim board and collaborated with board members and volunteers on a wide range of organizational development activities, including fundraising, organizational development, and creating the mission, vision, bylaws, and goals.

Bryn loves POWER, and subscribes completely to its mission, vision, structure and work. Although she doesn't have children herself, she is surrounded by great parents and youth, who have taught her a lot about importance of supporting and respecting the rights and struggles of parents and youth. Her Grandma Ida was a Single low-income parent, and she and Bryn's mother instilled in her a great respect and admiration for the immense work of mothering, especially of being a poor mom. They also gave Bryn a good understanding of a wide range of issues, including class issues. Bryn's family and friends have taught her, through word and deed, the importance of activism, and that it's crucial (and fun!) to collaborate with people on social change, including the eradication of poverty.

In the early 1990's, Bryn worked with the Belize Rural Women's Association to design and implement an oral history project that focused on the experiences of low-income women in northern Belize. Out of this two-year experience, a book called Rising Up: Life Stories of Belizean Women (1993, Sister Vision Press) was published. In 1995, she founded a non-profit educational organization called Laughing Crow Productions and served as the executive director for 5 years. Their mission was to promote social justice through theater and other creative educational programs.

From 1999-2003, Bryn co-owned and operated Olympia World News, a local cafe/magazine store/performance venue. She has also worked closely with the boards of organizations for which she's volunteered, including Stonewall Youth and Safeplace, where she worked as a public speaker and advocate when it was a women-centered collective in the late 80's and early 90's. For the last 5 years, Bryn has served as the legislative aide for Adam Kline, a state senator from South Seattle. A good port of their work is to work with members of a wide range of organizations, including POWER, that are dealing with poverty issues and are working to positively change state laws and agency policy/procedure. Bryn plays upright bass in a local old-time band called Deaf Lester and lives in a collective household with three other folks.

Richard Lopez is a graduate of The Evergreen State College. He was fortunate to have WROC, now POWER, as a source of help a few years ago when he discovered that the DSHS mission statement meant absolutely nothing to the WorkFirst employees. Despite the attempts of DSHS to exhaust his attempts to finish his graudate school with threats of sanctions and outrageous welfare investigations, Richard's went on to finish his MA at Northwest Nazarene University. Richard's faith includes a real-life component of activism that is more than words but a desire to see and to work for change in our community where resources and opportunities equally benefit all in our society. Richard is also a freelance musician in the Northwest and works as a chaplain for a Disaster Medical Assistance Team that is based in Seattle. He lives with his wife and five kids in Tumwater.

Originally from California, Jeannette Garceau is a resident of Olympia and an active member of POWER. She is committed to the mission and vision of work against poverty and believes strongly in empowerment and education for social change. She has served on the board of the Gleaners Coalition. She has been involved in social justice and economic human rights work for the past 10 years. Her skills include program development and education-related activities. She believes that welfare rights work needs to be understood in the context of larger economic changes being experienced across the country.

Cat Sullivan has been a low-income worker for over 30 years. She has also been a welfare recipient. As an older woman who straddled the advent of more women in the workforce from a time when many women stayed home and raised their children, Cat knew of those two worlds, their differences and what was good and bad about both. She can testify from personal experience as a low-income worker, as a parent, and welfare recipient because whe has lived it as well as being an organizer and an activist.

For over 18 year Cat has known and worked with the community of organizers who have worked to eradicate poverty. She successfully fought for and got an education through the WorkFirst Program and is passionately supportive of allowing all low income women (and men) to obtain a higher education or skill according to their abilities and desires and to eradicate the rampant racism and sexism that prevents such education that she has witnessed with her own eyes.

Cat is also a passionate support for raising our society's consciousness around the sexist and racist attitudes in our society, especially for the lack of support for raising children. She tries to live her life as well as speak to changing things so that no matter who you are and your circumstances, parenting and care giving is considered work that contributes to and is worthy of our community's and government's support. She has worked for years on raising the conscience of legislators, policy makers, citizens, and other organizers to promote these things by writing and speaking to them.

Cat lives in the Seattle area and has server on the following organizations as board member. Keystone Congregational Church Board Member, Welfare Rights Organizing Coalitions, Headstart Parent Board. Cat want to serve on POWER's board beacuse she is a passionate supporter and believer in the people and policies around POWER's mission and work, which coincide with her own work. It means more to her than any other work she has done except perhaps parenting her kids. This is why POWER is so important and a strong voice to peak for those who have few to speak for them.