Email This   Larger Font      Print This   Smaller Font Advertisement     Watch Video Did you Know? Northwest Children’s Outreach is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization; donations are tax deductible. Northwest Children’s Outreach spends 99 percent of its funds directly on recipients. The organization was started by two Portland women in 2001 and expanded to Vancouver in 2005. Lastyear the group served 20,000 children.   To help   What: Gently-used clothing for children, age newborn to 18; shoes and coats for children of all ages, nursery items, toys, books and more. Where: Donations can be dropped off at NCO’s warehouse in EastRidge Business Park, 11800 NE 95th St., Suite 281. Hours: Donations are accepted Mondays from 7 to 8:30 p.m. or Thursdays from 9 to 11 a.m. The warehouse will be closed Memorial Day. Call: 360-576-8024. Zachary kaufman/The Columbian Joni Vilhauer, center, and Julie McCann sort out clothing requests to be filled by volunteers — including Vilhauer’s husband, Sam, left — at the Northwest Children’s Outreach warehouse in Sifton. The rapidly growing nonprofit organization helped more than 2,000 children in Clark County last year.

Sunday, May 04, 2008
By Stephanie Rice, Columbian Staff writer

Fleece baby blankets, 20 a month, was how they started.

Through prayer they were inspired to do more.

Today, Joni Vilhauer’s and Julie McCann’s commitment to poor children fills a 1,200-square-foot warehouse in Sifton.

More than 160 plastic bins hold assorted, mostly used clothes sized to fit newborns to teens. Racks of coats line a wall. Shelves of used toys and books beckon the faithful volunteers who come once a week to fill orders.

And, serving as a reminder of how basic the needs are that aren’t otherwise being met for some Clark County children, smaller plastic bins hold new underwear, soap, shampoo and toothbrushes.

“Last week I got asked for pads,” Vilhauer said. “We are not getting asked for frivolous things.”

Vilhauer and McCann are director and financial manager of the Clark County branch of Northwest Children’s Outreach.

The Felida neighbors who met in Bible study don’t consider their unpaid work in terms of titles, however. As they see it, they are carrying out God’s plans for them to serve.

In 2006 they helped 1,250 children, twice the number they helped in 2005, their first year. Last year they prepared bags for 2,073 children.

Energized by a growing list of clients, they aren’t worried about the fact their warehouse lease is up in August and they haven’t found a new place. They’d like a larger space and an owner willing to give them a discount on the rent.

They aren’t losing sleep over the potential challenges, Vilhauer said, because they have faith.

“I know that He is absolutely capable of providing everything we need,” Vilhauer said. “If we are supposed to help 1,000 kids or 10,000, it’s going to happen.”

Word of mouth

They’ve made it this far by taking an unusual route. Among charities, Northwest Children’s Outreach stands out not only because its directors are unpaid, but they also don’t rely on grants, a fundraising method often used by nonprofit groups.

Instead, the agency depends on word of mouth to bring in donations of money, clothes and accessories for babies and toddlers.

They supplement the donated goods with shopping trips to make sure they can fill the weekly orders.

“When we see a sale on socks or underwear, we just load up,” McCann said.

McCann orders items such as portable cribs, pacifiers and bottles online and in bulk.

Volunteers show up Monday nights to fill orders and Thursday mornings to sort items.

At first, Vilhauer and McCann had to search for social service agencies willing to let them help. They found four. Now they take orders from two dozen agencies, including Educational Opportunities for Children and Families, which administers programs for low-income families including Head Start and serves between 1,500 and 2,000 families a year. Executive Director Doug Lehrman said his employees who work with families tell them they can submit requests.

Amy Reynolds, program director for Share, said her agency gets lots of donated clothes for the 500 families and single people who stay in the agency’s shelters every year. She said the charity is unique in that it grants specific wishes for items  Share wouldn’t necessarily have on hand. For example: clothes for a plus-sized teenager or a layette — diapers, bottles, blankets, onesies, booties and more — for newborns.

“(The charity) is an amazing gift,” Reynolds said.

Prayed for guidance

For two years before starting the chapter on this side of the Columbia River, Vilhauer delivered 20 fleece baby blankets a month to the group’s warehouse in Beaverton, Ore.

Northwest Children’s Outreach was started in 2001 by Vilhauer’s best friend, Carolyn Quatier, and Melissa Balsiger. In 2003 Vilhauer asked how she could help.

Baby blankets, Quatier said.

Vilhauer started buying yards of fleece and recruited five friends, including McCann, to make soft little blankets that would be included in layettes.

Then Vilhauer’s daughter, her youngest of two children, graduated from Skyview High School and left for Washington State University in Pullman.

Vilhauer suddenly had more time on her hands. She prayed about what she should do.

“He just made it very obvious to me,” she said. She invited McCann to lunch and asked, “What do you think about NCO in Vancouver?”

They prayed about it. Then they began asking for help.

“We just started talking, and I’m really good at that,” Vilhauer said.

The warehouse was offered for a low price and seed money was donated by friends. They, in turn, began putting together their gift bags in July 2005.

To find the people who needed help, they went to social service agencies. Some were skeptical.  “They’d say, ‘You want to provide stuff for me every week for free, and all I have to do is ask?” Vilhauer recalled. “The other response was, ‘Oh, you must have dropped straight from heaven!’ ”

It was easier finding donors. Parents of McCann’s two children’s friends and classmates started donating clothes. Word spread through churches and moms’ groups.

Vilhauer and McCann relish their roles as behind-the-scenes providers.

“I don’t need to work for a living. I want to serve,” McCann said.

Since they get the requests from agencies, they never meet the recipients. They’ll hear stories from caseworkers about how happy mothers were to receive a portable crib for their newborn, or how grateful they were when they opened the plastic garbage bag with their child’s name on it and found pairs of pants, shirts, pajamas, shoes and more, exceeding what had been requested.

“We always try to include toys and books in packages for children, and a new toy, that’s wrapped, as a birthday present,” Vilhauer said.

While they search for a new warehouse, they look to the Oregon chapter for inspiration. After the lease ended on its Beaverton warehouse, two spaces were offered. They took both, one in Hillsboro and another in the Pearl District, Quatier said.

“That’s definitely evidence to us that God is involved in this project and knows exactly what the children need,” said Quatier, who with Balsiger still runs the much-larger Oregon chapter. They work with 70 agencies and account for three-fourths of the $1.4 million in cash and in-kind donations reported last year. “Diaper donors” keep them in enough money to donate 3,000 to 4,000 diapers every week.

“We’ve seen full-on miracles, where a very specific item that we’ve never had donated prior comes in on the very same day that an order comes in for it,” Quatier said.

The Clark County chapter still has work to do, she added.

“You’re not going to solve the problem,” Quatier said. “It’s not like you can finish the project. It’s ongoing work, and so you have to just be faithful to accomplish the task on a weekly basis and have confidence that God has this thing covered.”

In every bag volunteers fill at the Sifton warehouse goes a copy of the Gospel of John, perhaps best known for Chapter 3, Verse 16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

But Vilhauer said her drive to do charitable work is divined in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ ”

Stephanie Rice can be reached at 360-735-4549 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.