Looking out my office window, I can see the Queen Anne Baptist Church on the corner of First Avenue North and Crockett Street. It is there that after months of planning the Helpline, as it was first called, its office opened in May 1982.¹

Racial busing, which started in 1978, the resulting “flight to the suburbs,” plus the impact of the pill on the local birth rate,² led to the closure in 1981 of two elementary schools (North and West Queen Anne)³ and Queen Anne High School⁴ and are proof of changing times in Seattle and Queen Anne in the early 1980s. Even so, it is not clear whether the school closures brought economic disparities into focus, or if the near collapse of Boeing,⁵ the region’s largest employer, in 1972 provoked more evident economic distress on Queen Anne. It is clear though that while neither the total population of the neighborhood, nor its demographics, changed much, people on the hill witnessed increased hunger, potential homelessness, and a tremendous need for neighbors to help neighbors.

A committee of 14 neighbors drawn primarily from Queen Anne churches oversaw the work.⁶ From the get-go, the steering committee wanted the Helpline to be funded by the churches and the business community of Queen Anne.⁷

As Art Lampkin, a member of the Steering Committee and the Queen Anne Ecumenical Parish Council, wrote:

The Committee designed the Helpline as a volunteer effort of concerned citizens of Queen Anne Hill who feel responsible for one another’s well-being and the nucleus of assistance is the community. If we cannot help personally, we will refer the person to the proper source. The group targeted for service is the low income, the physically disabled, and the older residents of Queen Anne Hill.

As the Queen Anne News reported,

Organizers of Helplines also hope to provide some financial support for people unable to pay heat and light bills, and to offer counseling on how best to reduce the amount of these bills by weatherstripping and other methods.⁸

In the same article, state Senator Ray Moore, also a member of the Steering Committee, reported,

When I am doorbelling, I see some sorry cases, people who have been unemployed six months or a year and their compensation is running out. They have gotten discouraged and can’t apply successfully for a job because they are whipped. I think we can help keep them going.

Moore, a Democrat, went on to blame the federal government which, during Ronald Reagan’s first term (1981-1985), made cuts in social services and replaced them with block grants to the states.

Dick Rhodes (1926-2003)⁹ served as the Steering Committee’s chair in 1982 and is generally credited as the primary force behind founding the Helpline. Rhodes owned the Queen Anne Thriftway, then located on Queen Anne Avenue between Howe and Crockett. Rhodes had bought the store in 1974 and maintained a commitment to the basics: a clean store, pleasant employees, and lots of service. For Thriftway to compete with its larger neighbor, Safeway, Rhodes remodeled and expanded the store in 1981. He kept a close ear to the customers, feeling that the store would compete best if it responded to changes in the community.”¹⁰ Rhodes’s work on the Steering Committee apparently stemmed from changes he observed in the community. Ultimately, he and Thriftway would be major champions of the Helpline even after the store changed ownership, name, and location.¹¹  

In addition to Rhodes and the many church representatives, the original Steering Committee included Art Lampkin and Bob Kussman from the Queen Anne Ecumenical Council, Senator Ray Moore, and Sue Moore, who was unrelated to the senator. Although the minutes of the Steering Committee and the earliest documents about the founding of the Helpline’s board of director don’t include Pat Sobeck’s name, she apparently attended meetings from the very beginning having been asked by Pastor Sorenson of the Queen Anne Lutheran Church to attend them as his observer.¹²

To contact the office, people in need telephoned 282-1540 before visiting. From the outset, the Helpline sought to coordinate the charitable efforts of nearly all the churches in the neighborhood. Those services included a food bank, a chore service, and a health clinic. The Ecumenical Parish Council managed donations to the charity.

Most of the calls for help requested food, so they were funneled to Dick Rhodes and Art Lampkin. Lisa Moore (unrelated to the other people named Moore in Helpline history), who later succeeded Pat Sobeck as the Helpline’s executive director, served as volunteer coordinator. Subsequently an on-strike airline pilot took over the volunteer coordination role. He served for three months until the strike ended. About that time, Dick Rhodes and Art approached Pat Sobeck about taking on the volunteer coordination, a role she held for about a year.¹³

Pat Sobeck Takes Over

By 1984, a Board of Directors had replaced the Steering Committee with most of the representatives of Queen Anne churches stepping away. By the August of that year, Pat Sobeck had joined the board. Sobeck subsequently became the Helpline’s first employee, first as volunteer coordinator and then in 1984 as executive director. Sobeck served until her retirement on July 31, 2012.   

Rhodes gave Sobeck an early assignment to locate an office for the Helpline. In her first year as executive director, Pat found the space at 311 West McGraw next door to the Five Corners Hardware Store.¹⁴ That office, now greatly expanded, still serves the Helpline.  

Sobeck is given credit for defining the services offered by the Helpline and even today they remain largely unchanged. Neighbors in need can find essential services such as food, clothing, and money to cover rent or other housing costs that help them stay in their homes. Only recently, recognizing that other community services or getting a job requires access to the internet, the Helpline expanded its definition of what is an essential service to include cell phones.

Ray Moore continued to serve on the Helpline’s board until 1994 when he retired from the state Senate. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, his successor in the Senate, joined the Helpline board then and served for many years. In 2016, Kohl-Welles moved from the state Senate to the King County Council and presented the council’s first ever Martin Luther King County Medal of Distinguished Service to Pat Sobeck.

A Taste of Queen Anne

Soon after assuming leadership of the Helpline, Sobeck and Dick Rhodes created A Taste of Queen Anne, the organization’s annual fundraiser. The Taste began when Rhodes convinced many of his fanciest purveyors to set up booths in the parking lot of Queen Anne Thriftway after hours.¹⁵ Neighbors bought tickets that supported the Helpline, while Rhodes’ purveyors donated the food that they shared from booths advertising their wares.

As the event grew in popularity, it moved about town from event halls in Belltown to downtown hotels. Subsequently, under Sobeck’s successor Lisa Moore, organizers realized that A Taste of Queen Anne needed to replant its neighborhood roots. The decision was made to move the event to St. Anne’s school gym with local restaurants providing samples of their offerings.

Now in 2022, Cara Lauer, who took over as executive director in July 2018, believes fundraising in the post-COVID era may be totally different and enlisted her board, including the owner/chef of Big Max Burger, Maximilian Petty, in transforming the Taste into a giant summertime picnic. That event, still called A Taste of Queen Anne, moved from October to August and took place at the Crockett Street Pedestrian Plaza¹⁶ (Queen Anne Avenue at Crockett).¹⁷

Crown of Queen Anne Fun Run & Walk

About the same time Sobeck took over, the Helpline created The Crown of Queen Anne Fun Run & Walk. The Queen Anne News noted on July 10, 2012,

This Saturday morning, after the last of walkers and runners are in and the trophies and raffles prizes given out, the 28th annual Queen Anne Fun Run and Walk will be history.¹⁸

The Fun Run eventually became part of the weekend-long celebration called Queen Anne Days. While never a major fundraiser, it served as an excellent way to connect with the community. In 2019, Helpline leadership found the name of the event disconnected from its mission and renamed it the Run for Home.

During her six-year tenure as executive director, Lisa Moore focused the energies of the organization’s volunteers on providing essential services to neighbors in need; and for this reason, she removed the Helpline as a beneficiary of the Boy Scout Christmas tree sales that used to take place on the parking lot of the former Safeway building (demolished as of September 2022 to replace it with a larger store and apartments).

Moore also expanded the Helpline’s service area to help people in Magnolia, Interbay, and South Lake Union. With offices at 3rd Ave. W. and W. McGraw St., nearby bus stops on routes 3, 4, 13 and 29 make it easy for clients to reach the Helpline, while a loading dock at the site facilitates clothing and food donations.

Cara Lauer is quick to point out that the Helpline, which requires at least $25,000 a month in cash to provide services, has only 1.5 full-time employees. It is one of Seattle’s most efficient social service agencies. The Helpline’s most recent annual Form 990 report to the IRS (2020) shows a financially responsible organization with contributions of $607,000 and a surplus of $168,000 that allows it to continue providing services into the following years. Although the Helpline spends an enviable two-thirds of its income on program services, the number is misleading. In addition to Emergency Financial Assistance that helps people stay in their homes and constitutes most of the money the organization spends, it reported the annual distribution to 2,439 people in need of 5,300 pieces of clothing and about 4,500 meals. All the food and clothing reflect in-kind donations from caring residents of Queen Anne and Magnolia.¹⁹

A relatively small eight-member board of directors oversees the work of the staff and not unlike many of Seattle not-for-profit organizations, remote work and meetings have taken their toll. Staff and board turnovers along with the move away from events to contracted income and fees for service from government agencies are changing the Queen Anne Helpline as it gears up for another 40 years, encouraging the larger community to support its work preventing homelessness and bolstering access to the foundational resources we all need to thrive.²⁰

Footnotes

[1] Queen Anne News, May 15, 1982. p. 3.

[2] The introduction of the birth control pill in 1960 (A Brief History of the Birth Control Pill (verywellhealth.com)) and its consequences contributed significantly to the decline in Seattle’s school-age population from about 99,000 pupils in 1955 to about 48,000 in 1981.

[3] Read June 28, 2022: West Queen Anne Elementary School - Historic Seattle

[4] Read June 28, 2022: Nicole Demers Changelo, author; Queen Anne High School - Queen Anne Historical Society (qahistory.org)

[5] Email to author from Pat Sobeck of August 11, 2022.

[6] Minutes of the Steering Committee meeting of May 8, 1982. The churches included Bethany Presbyterian, First Free Methodist Church, Queen Anne Baptist, Queen Anne Christian, Queen Anne Lutheran, Sacred Heart and Saint Anne, Saint Vincent de Paul, Seattle Pacific College,

[7] Email from Pat Sobeck of August 11, 2022.

[8] Queen Anne News, May 15, 1982. p. 3.

[9] Dick Rhodes | BONNEY WATSON

[10] Gordon, Marina, Business Around the Hill, Queen Anne: Community on the Hill, 1993, p. 165.

[11] The Metropolitan Market moved to Mercer Street and First Avenue N. in 2012.

[12] Email from Pat Sobeck to author of August 11, 2022.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] The author received a grant on August 31, 2022, on behalf of Queen Anne Greenways to work with the city of Seattle to create a permanent pedestrian plaza at this site. The name used here is not official, but it is used in the grant award.

[17] The author just received a grant on behalf of Queen Anne Greenways to work with the city of Seattle to create a permanent pedestrian plaza at this site. The name used here is not official, but it is used in the grant award.

[18] Queen Anne News, July 10, 2012.

[19] Queen Anne Helpline Form 990, 2020

[20] Mission statement of the Queen Anne Helpline viewed online July 6, 2022 at About - Queen Anne Helpline