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Oct. 13--Nadia Caldwell has job interviews with four companies this weekend.
The Tacoma Community College student might have an edge on the average candidate: She recently had a crash course in how to fill out applications, select appropriate attire and perfect a firm-but-not-crushing handshake.
Caldwell, 18, was one of 59 teenage women who took part in Project Empower and Employ at the YWCA. She and her fellow participants will return for interviews Saturday.
"It was a really cool program," she said. "It's good for girls to get experience on appropriate interview etiquette -- it would probably be good for adults, too."
This month, the YWCA of Pierce County, at 405 Broadway in Tacoma, is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
In the beginning, the YW's emphasis was on fitness, housing and political organization -- aspects of life that were otherwise relatively inaccessible to women.
Today, the pool in the basement is dry, and the gymnasium is a play area for child victims of domestic abuse.
There was always a place here for the poor, the abused, the woman discriminated against for her race or her class. But now the focus has narrowed to those core areas.
To staff member Karin Tautfest, the history of the Y is a testament to how far women have come in terms of social services, female empowerment and racial equality; it also shows how far society still has to go.
"It's a really different world that we live in now," said Tautfest, director of shelter and advocacy services. "But it also shows how much it has stayed the same.
"There's still a great need to create systems of equality for all people, really."
the early years
This legacy started at the turn of the 20th century, at small meetings in the homes of Tacoma's wealthiest women.
The first official act was to place a "matron" at the Tacoma docks and the train station. She reunited lost children with their parents, guided immigrants and helped single women find safe housing.
The YW also provided housing for the families of soldiers training at Camp Lewis during World War I.
The building on Broadway was built in the late 1920s, with five stories, a gymnasium, a kitchen, dormitories and the area's first swimming pool for women.
The pool was open to the public, but with strict hygiene rules: Swimmers had to be seen by a doctor once a year and wore special sterilized bathing suits borrowed from the YW.
These programs gave women a chance to exercise, play sports and engage in political activism. The YW also provided safe lodging for single moms, students and the homeless.
There always have been women fleeing domestic abuse, but it was rarely talked about in the early years, said current YWCA Executive Director Miriam Barnett.
"People felt that we shouldn't be making it a public issue," she said. "A lot has changed."
The mission was more social in the beginning, but turned more heavily to human services during the Great Depression and World War II.
The nonprofit broke social ground by hosting discussions on color equality in the 1940s, single parenting groups in the 1950s, multiracial teen groups in the 1960s and an abortion referral clinic in 1971.
Around that time, the YWCA of the USA adopted the motto "One Imperative: To eliminate racism in all its forms and by any means necessary."
There was some community backlash, and YW members wrote letters and editorials supporting the mission in the Tacoma News Tribune.
One reader responded, "Certainly I believe in the elimination of racism, but not by 'any means necessary.'"
shifting focus
Today, the shelter provides a home and support services to roughly 400 women and children, including legal counseling and help finding transitional housing.
A mentoring program pairs community volunteers with girls attending the Day Reporting School at Remann Hall. A racial justice program hosts off-campus workshops to explore diversity.
This month, the YW staff will host domestic violence workshops called "In Her Shoes" at college campuses in the area. Participants are given a scenario in which they're abused and can go to work stations representing public and private agencies. They choose their own fate, which sometimes ends in death.
The YW shook up its management about two years ago when the agency's board asked Executive Director Connie Brown to resign.
The only reason board members gave was they needed a leader who could "support the YWCA's vision," primarily building a new facility or expanding the original one. At least one board member was upset by the decision.
An interim director led things for six months until the board hired Barnett. She said transitions are always difficult, but it hasn't hindered programs.
"I hope to be here a long time," Barnett said.
Staff say the agency's biggest problem now is space. The shelter is almost always full, and staff say roughly 300 people are turned away a month. The building is starting to wear, marked by the occasional pipe burst or other maintenance problems.
At some point, the board will have to decide whether to expand the 24,000-square-foot building or start anew elsewhere. Although the 80-year-old structure is part of the YWCA's rich past, the board and staff say changes will have to be made for the next century.
"I'm sure we'll be around 100 years from now," Tautfest said. "I'm sure people will be celebrating our 200th anniversary and reminiscing."
YWCA receives national charter on Oct. 9. The Patriot League, later called the Girl Reserves, is established as a social club for girls aged 12 to 18. Groundbreaking ceremony for the building at 405 Broadway, Tacoma. The YW hosts "circle suppers" as social entertainment during the Depression, as well as male and female basketball and badminton games. Girl Reserves members work as berry pickers in place of farmers fighting in World War II. The YW hosts talks on what will happen to female workers when men return from the war and want their jobs back. New goal is "to work for racial understanding and justice." The YW hosts an NAACP conference. A class for single parents turns into a regular social club. The YW hosts a forum on abortion law. The state's first shelter for battered women opens at the YW. The Washington State Domestic Violence Hotline opens at the YW, later moves to Olympia. A man is hired as the executive director, the first man to hold that position at any YWCA in the nation. The national organization stipulates that a woman hold that office, and begins disaccreditation. The local YW sues. He resigns and the lawsuit is dropped. The YW establishes Operation SMART to introduce young girls to science, math and technology. Eight units of transitional housing are established so women have somewhere to go when they leave the shelter. The YWCA celebrates 100 years in Pierce County. YWCA MEMORIES
Gretchen Wilbert
Age: 78
Residence: Gig Harbor
Y connection: The former Gig Harbor mayor learned to swim in the Y pool as a young girl in the 1930s.
"It was a safe place for young people," she said. "Safe and friendly."
She joined the Girl Reserves (the precursor to Girl Scouts) in elementary school, and can still remember parts of their theme song: "Now there's a girl I'd like to know. She has a GR spirit from head to toe ..."
Teresa Slattery
Age: 54
Residence: Tacoma
Y connection: She lived at the Y from 1970 to 1972. She had graduated high school in Napavine, Lewis County, and moved here to attend Bates Technical College.
The Y offered lodging for about $18 a month, with a roommate. She lived where the domestic violence shelter is today.
Slattery remembers her housemother, Mrs. Milbreath, a strict woman who watched over the girls and made sure they came home before curfew. Young men could come to the first floor to take the boarders on dates, but couldn't go upstairs.
"It was just kind of a good, safe lifestyle," said Slattery, who volunteers at the Y today.
Molly Maddock
Age: 55
Residence: Tacoma
Y connection: She taught an aerobics class there in the 1980s. She and her students had to go down roughly 100 stairs to the basement gym near the pool. She and her students would don leotards and leg warmers and exercise to Rod Stewart's "Young Turks" and Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." Women who lived in the shelter also joined in on her classes, sporadically.
Today, Maddock lets YWCA employees attend her classes -- which are now held outside the Y -- for free.
Angie Leventis: 253-597-8692
angie.leventis@thenewstribune.com
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Copyright (c) 2006, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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