Find Your Y: Community partners join forces to promote Resilience Month

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, October 8, 2025

By Minnie Whalen

Resilient communities build resilient children. We all have a role to play in counterbalancing negative experiences and stacking on the positive ones. The Olympic Peninsula YMCA offers individuals and families a well-connected, supportive community to build positive experiences.

Beyond the YMCA’s brick and mortar buildings, the Y is about building connective bridges too. Since 2023, the YMCA has been in a sponsor-relationship with the Clallam Resilience Project, sharing a common purpose and enabling its work to progress.

October is a great time to learn more about resilience since it is national Resilience Month. Community members can join in a free event almost every day this month.

The Resilience Project is a network of over 50 local organizations working together on the Olympic Peninsula to foster resilience for our residents, organizations, community, and systems. If you think of resilience like a scale, you can balance negative experiences with positive ones. Parents, caring adults, and communities can help build resilience for children by stacking on positive factors, removing negative factors, or both.

Adults can build resilience in children by creating safe, stable, nurturing environments rich in serve-and-return interactions (back-and-forth conversations and play), and by preventing experiences that cause toxic stress, such as neglect or abuse.

Resilience Month highlights the vital role of community support in building individual and collective well-being. Events throughout the month focus on arts, culture, education, and social connection, helping to “tip the scales” toward positive outcomes for children, families, and communities.

Throughout the month, Sequim residents can participate in community resilience activities through events involving music, arts and sharing of information and through gatherings that promote it.

Free event highlights Include:

Creating Common Ground

Carmen Watson-Charles, culture manager for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Native American liaison for the Port Angeles School District, will speak on the topic “Creating Common Ground” during an event scheduled for 12:35 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 23 in Little Theater at Peninsula College’s Studium Generale and by Zoom.

Indigenous Peoples Day

The Indigenous Peoples Day Poetry Gathering will take place on Monday, Oct. 13, ʔaʔkʷustəŋáw̕txʷ House of Learning, Peninsula College Longhouse. Honoring the heritage, contributions, and resilience of Indigenous communities while acknowledging the ongoing impacts of colonization. This is in coordination with the North Olympic Library Systems and Peninsula College.

Proclamation

A proclamation by the Sequim City Council will declare October to be Resilience Awareness Month, noting that “communities thrive when individuals of all ages and backgrounds are supported in building resilience, well-being, and a strong sense of hope.”

Other participating organizations and events include Caregiver Connect, Brain Injury & Domestic Violence forums, Community Yarn Circles and more. Details about the partners hosting events, and a full calendar of “October as Resilience Month” events can be found at clallamresilienceproject.org.

Research shows that we cannot just talk about providing children with better relationships without developing systems that prioritize relationships. There are many ways that we can do this, and there are many opportunities on the Olympic Peninsula where we can see this good work already happening.

Resilience Month bridges partners together. It provides a platform for showcasing events, sharing ideas, and supporting our collective work for common good and tipping the scales towards positive outcomes by strengthening relationships. We hope individuals will attend events with family, friends, and neighbors. These unifying, collaborative efforts help create a community that promotes healing and wellness.

Resilience Month sponsors and partners include: Port Angeles Education Foundation, Olympic Medical Center and Olympic Medical Center Foundation, WSU Clallam County Extension Program, Forks Food Bank, Port Angeles Food Bank, Peninsula Behavioral Health, Buena Luz Bakery, Olympic Peninsula Boys and Girls Club, Peninsula College, Port Angeles Senior and Community Center, Port Angeles Healthy Youth Coalition, Mariposa House, Field Arts and Event Hall, NAMI Washington, Rainforest Arts Council, Clallam County Health and Human Services, First Step Family Support Center, WomenSpirit, Port Angeles School District, Lower Elwha Family Advocacy, Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, Goodness Tea, Dove House Advocacy, Olympic View Community Foundation, Klallam Counseling Services, and Olympic Peninsula YMCA.

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Minnie Whalen is director of Clallam Resilience Project