PORT TOWNSEND — If Cherish Cronmiller could fold out a map of the nation and pick a community action program to lead, she said she would pick the Pacific Northwest.
“I feel extremely lucky,” said Cronmiller, who began her role Monday as the executive director for Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP).
“I feel like I’ve won the lottery.”
Cronmiller, 42, comes to Port Townsend from Ohio to lead the agency, which services both Jefferson and Clallam counties with offices in Port Townsend, Port Angeles and Forks.
The OlyCAP board, with representatives from both counties, hired Cronmiller to replace Dale Wilson, who retired Friday.
“The CAP agency seems grateful and lucky because Dale seems like he’s been a wonderful director, and the staff is sad to see him go,” Cronmiller said.
“I just really hope I’m able to continue the good work he’s done with the positive team he’s put together.”
Cronmiller spent the last 12 years in Dayton, Ohio, and worked for the past decade at the Miami Valley Community Action Partnership, where she ascended to become the president and CEO in 2017.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in organizational communication from Ohio University in Athens and obtained a law degree from Ohio State University in Columbus.
But she wasn’t tied to the Ohio Valley.
Cronmiller said her mother lives in Port Angeles, her step-father is an attorney who works for the Northwest Justice Project, and her sister is an assistant prosecuting attorney for the city of Seattle.
“I knew I wanted to come out here to the Pacific Northwest,” Cronmiller said.
She said she had applied for a position at the Peninsula Housing Alliance when she learned about Wilson’s pending retirement.
“I thought, ‘No way, what are the chances?’” Cronmiller said. “I’ve been up here visiting. This is beautiful. Who gets to work here?”
Cronmiller, a certified Community Action Professional, described herself as hands-on with specific interests in home construction projects. She’s worked in the past with Habitat for Humanity, she said.
“I can hang drywall and do basic electrical and plumbing work,” she said.
She also described working near Athens, Ohio, an area surrounded by what she called “extreme poverty.”
Community action programs help to connect people who live below the self-sufficiency line in areas such as housing, transportation, medical or mental health treatment, education services, food and nutrition and job training.
“CAP agencies cover 99 percent of the counties in the U.S., and they’re set up to fill the void where people need help,” Cronmiller said. “It’s often times the best-kept secret in communities.”
The challenges on the North Olympic Peninsula include housing and transportation, she said.
Cronmiller added she’s excited to be part of the development stage for OlyCAP’s proposed $14.5 million, 43-unit affordable housing complex at Seventh and Hendricks streets in Port Townsend.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” she said.
The proposal received a nearly $3 million grant in December from the state Department of Commerce, an award Wilson called “the keystone” of success.
Cronmiller said she wants to revamp the agency’s printed materials, website and social media to help tell some of their clients’ stories.
“Our world runs onto the backs of people who struggle to meet their basic needs, which is hard to believe in the United States of America,” she said.
“The way our system is set up, poverty is always going to exist.”
Cronmiller said there’s room for expansion for some of OlyCAP’s programs, particularly with private, unencumbered donations. She singled out in-home health care, home weatherization services and training for other nonprofits.
“You have to find good ways of selling that — that fundraising is happening,” Cronmiller said.
She also pointed to the Peninsula Home Fund, a service OlyCAP has provided for the past 31 years, with fundraising by the Peninsula Daily News that helps families on the North Olympic Peninsula.
More than $3.92 million has been raised since 1989, including $230,673 in the 2019 campaign from Thanksgiving through Dec. 31.
Some who benefited from the fund have told of their history and their needs in the PDN.
“Getting those stories out there is so important,” Cronmiller said. “If you literally haven’t been exposed to some of those hardships, you don’t really know what that’s about.”
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Jefferson County Managing Editor Brian McLean can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 6, or at bmclean@peninsuladailynews.com.
