CHIMACUM — Imagine distributing 9,450 notebooks to needy Olympic Peninsula students from Shelton to Chimacum to Port Angeles, Forks and Queets.
The Olympic Peninsula Bluebills, retired Boeing employees most of whom live in Port Ludlow, are doing just that today.
They are doing it on behalf of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian charity organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.
Carl’s Building Supply in Port Hadlock donated the use of its delivery truck to pick up six pallets of spiral notebooks from World Vision’s warehouse in Fife.
On Thursday, 12 Bluebills helped load their smaller trucks to distribute the notebooks today to 13 Peninsula schools that have 70 percent of their students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.
Besides Shelton, notebooks are going to school districts in Brinnon, Quilcene, Port Angeles, Forks — and Queets, in West Jefferson County’s most southwesterly corner.
“It’s a great project,” said Myron Vojt of Port Ludlow, Olympic Peninsula Bluebills manager of World Vision’s Gifts-In-Kind Program.
World Vision has cited 62 Peninsula Bluebills who have participated in the program, distributing more than 500 pallets of products for the needy, contributing 10,000 volunteer hours and driving more than 100,000 miles.
“The round trip to Queets, as an example, is 300 miles from our warehouse in Chimacum,” said Vojt, who was to drive a pickup truckload of notebooks to Chimacum Focus Alternative High School this morning.
Beside the notebooks, the Bluebills have hauled many other shipments for World Vision, including women’s clothes, office supplies and personal products.
The Bluebills have provided 52 agencies, schools and churches with more than 500 pallets of products, Vojt said.
Because many Bluebills have carpentry skills, they last year helped 263 elderly Peninsula residents by building accessible ramps and safety railings to their homes as part of their “independent living community projects,” he said.
The Olympic Peninsula Bluebills chapter covers Jefferson, Clallam and Kitsap counties and its purpose is to provide opportunities for volunteers to use their time, experience, skills and knowledge to work together to enhance their own lives and improve the community’s quality of life.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
