Eatonville Family Agency welcomes new director

Editor’s Note: The Mountain News is pleased to share exciting news from the Eatonville Family Agency – they have a new director, Alana Smith.

The EFA is the foremost organization in Eatonville serving a wide range of the resident’s needs, including operating a sizeable food bank, providing DSHS services with an in-house social worker, assisting folks in applying for Obamacare, and providing social and recreational activities for seniors. The following is the press release from Ruth Ferris of the Eatonville Family Agency Board:

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Meet Eatonville Family Agency’s New Director, Alana Smith

Many in Eatonville already know the new director of the Eatonville Family Agency, Alana Smith.

You may have met this multi-talented woman if you have taken a recent canning class or a recent class about how to make your own laundry soap. You may have purchased pasture-raised beef or organic eggs that came from her farm.

You may have met her at the Eatonville Chamber of Commerce, where she is Vice President and an active advocate for broad participation in matters affecting the rural economy, environment, and community.

Or, you may have met her as the Director of Youth Connection, an after-school program for sixty grade-school children. One of those programs is at Weyerhaeuser Elementary School and those students head out of doors after school to study the environment. The other program is in Eatonville, where students have an opportunity to relax, have snacks, work on crafts, or to have help with their homework. Both programs provide a welcoming and caring place for children at the end of the school day.

In Alana’s work at Youth Connection, she has gained experience that will be invaluable at Eatonville Family Agency, especially grant writing, working with budget projections, and working with a board of directors.

To that experience, she adds her unique combination of love of people, compassion for those in need, strength from her spiritual tradition, and high, positive energy about life and work that is expressed in a calm and joyful way.

When Alana ends her work day, she goes home to her working farm where she is greeted by cows, chickens, and horses. Before she settles in at home, she often will have a ride on one of her horses, enjoying the solitude and beauty of a ride under Douglas Fir trees and in the shadow of Mount Rainier.

Returning to the house, she is greeted by David Smith, her husband of twenty-one years, who works at Mount Rainier. Their family combines their daughter with her four children and Dave’s daughter, making a family of six children.

They all share the ethics and spiritual values of caring for the earth and its creatures; they all value hard work and compassion for the vulnerable.

Alana has lived in Morton and in Battleground, and she has many ties to the Eatonville region. Her great-grandfather was a Duke, who homesteaded in Alder. Her father was George Sharp and her mother was Opal Campbell, both of the Alder-Eatonville region.

Alana has worked at Clay City, Barney’s, and Copper Creek.

Twenty years of her life were spent caring the elderly. She cared for her mother, who had a stroke, and she became a caretaker in her home for elderly men. She feels that the compassion that she and her family practice was shaped by that experience.

When she lived in Battleground, she worked as the Volunteer Coordinator at Saint Andrew’s Church, working with Share, a program that housed the homeless and whose mission was “to lead the homeless to self-sufficiency by providing food, shelter, advocacy and compassion.”

Alana is looking forward to all the challenges of being the Director of Eatonville Family Agency. She is especially inspired by being the director of an agency that is working to bring about change for the better.