Students form board to support families, nonprofits
Published 4:30 am Wednesday, May 27, 2026
A new student-led board looks to help both classmates and their families with basic necessities along with the local nonprofits supporting them.
The Student Community Partnership Initiative features a group of Sequim High schoolers under the guidance of the Sequim Education Foundation (SEF) who have outreached to nonprofits to see how they best could use an Amazon grant from three years ago.
SHS senior Laila Sundin said they’ve sought ways for funds to help students but efforts had stalled a few times for various reasons.
Lauren Denton, executive director of Sequim Education Foundation, said Sundin and 2025 SHS grad Keira Morey brainstormed last school year how to use a $25,000 grant from Amazon that came in parallel to the local “Boys in the Boat” movie showing in December 2023. They agreed to form a student board.
Sundin said at the beginning of this school year, she spoke with all of SHS’ major clubs to recruit students to help consider if they should use the funds for a project or support a nonprofit.
Sundin, fellow seniors John Pehrson and Lincoln Forrest, junior Olive Bridge, and freshman Kendall Adolphe joined as board members and SEF student representatives.
“We ended up doing a lot of research and brainstorming into nonprofits (and) we decided pretty early on that we wanted it to go into basic needs, like food and housing because that was the first intention when it was given,” Sundin said.
After interviewing various nonprofits, the students agreed to set a matching grant with the St. Vincent de Paul, St. Joseph Conference, Sequim for $20,000.
“We felt they could reach the most people, and would have the biggest impact, and could also directly help students and families,” Sundin said.
The student board would match up to $20,000 through June 30.
Donations can be sent to St. Vincent de Paul, P.O. Box 2114, Sequim, WA, 98382. Inquiries can also be made to St. Vincent de Paul President Ed Koszykowski at ekoszykowsi@att.net or Denton at executivedirector@sequimeducationfoundation.org.
Helping out
St. Vincent de Paul helps with housing, utilities, food, and transportation challenges. From Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025, they helped 1,224 families including 1,786 adults and 815 children with more than $206,000 in rent, utilities and gas assistance.
Its emergency line is 360-683-2112.
Koszykowski said parishioners at St. Joseph’s have given more than $16,000 as of April 30 to the matching campaign, and “they’re excited about us wanting to work with young people of this community.”
He said they realize they strictly deal with adults of families, and they “see the anxiety, the despair that families have sometimes not knowing whether or not they’re gonna be able to stay in the place they’re in or whether or not the lights are gonna go out in a week.”
“That anxiety is shared by the kids,” Koszykowski said.
He said those students will come to school and fellow students and teachers can see it on their faces.
“Some kids shut down because of the uncertainty and unpredictability, and so our goal has always been to deal with providing that stability in a family and knowing that we can make that direct impact, and do it in a timely manner because so many of these people are looking at needs being taken care of in a few days sometimes,” Koszykowski said.
Mike Flynn with St. Vincent de Paul said the process has been encouraging to him.
“It gives me hope for the future because I see what these kids have done and … they see the need and have searched out ways to help fill that need.”
“How refreshing it’s been to work with young people and how reassuring it’s been to see how conscious they are of the world around them,” Koszykowski said.
Sundin said she was a freshman when the initial project’s efforts started with Sequim Interact Club looking to bring awareness and support to local struggling youth.
“I’ve been able to see the project progress literally through my entire high school experience,” she said.
She’s felt inspired talking about ways to support the community because it’s felt so impactful.
“I learned so much through this process and I feel like I will be able to carry that with me when I leave for college and decide what I’m gonna do for work,” she said.
“I’m also just relieved that this money will be used to help people and I’m just so excited that I get to see this happen.
“It’s been on my mind for four years, and so being part of the process and watching the money go towards a cause that is truly going to help people that I potentially know, and people in our community, it’s just indescribable. I’m overjoyed that it’s happening.”
Pehrson, president of the Interact Club, said it’s extremely fulfilling to see the project come to fruition too.
He said being involved in the student board initiative and Interact Club has changed his life and offered an opportunity for him to help.
“It’s been personally fulfilling, and it’s also been really cool to see a continuation of the work that we put in (that underclassmen) will continue.”
Visible nonprofits
Another role for the student-led board next school year will be connecting students with nonprofits in an effort to create visibility for them.
Sundin said many nonprofits expressed a desire to get word out more about their efforts online but they didn’t have someone willing to take that on. Afterward, Pehrson recommended a program to connect the nonprofits and students interested in nonprofit work as an internship.
“One of the main goals that we wanted is to act as a bridge,” he said.
Denton said there are students who want to specifically work with leadership in nonprofit organizations.
“We noticed these smaller nonprofits could really benefit from a student voice or support with things like social media and Facebook pages and visibility,” she said.
“So the goal is to begin next year with the focus of making connections with students to nonprofit organizations that would like student support.”
Bridge, a senior next year, said interviewing the nonprofits was eye-opening because she didn’t realize Sequim had so many.
“I didn’t really have an understanding of just how many we had, and also just the variety in organizations we had,” she said. “I think that this project with this grant and the money that we’re giving away is super impactful, and I’m really glad that it prompted us to explore more organizations.”
She also said there are many open positions and opportunities for students in Sequim, but it’s often the same students volunteering, so they want to connect a variety of students with nonprofits.
“I’m really excited to see where this goes,” she said.
Sundin said there many students who want to do something positive but they don’t know about the opportunities, so she thinks the board will be a good way to connect.
With the Sequim Education Foundation supporting the board, Denton said it’s been a blessing to have the project come through with the grant.
SEF provides scholarships for students, and teaching grants, Denton said, and they work to provide funds to remove barriers, so this project is an opportunity to connect directly with students and community groups
For more about the Sequim Education Foundation, visit sequimeducationfoundation.org.
