Stone Soup—What we make together

Here’s an excerpt of Ray’s remarks at this year’s Eat, Drink & Be Giving. If you were unable to attend, (Bummer! You missed a lovely evening.) you can still support kids & families with a generous pledge of support, right now.

I am the bedtime story teller at the Landing. I work an overnight shift there most Fridays, and usually, by the time I arrive, kids are in pajamas, teeth have been brushed, and everybody is winding down for bed. I show up just in time to deliver that one last cup of water and read a few books to boys and girls with very heavy eyelids. So I thought, I might start by telling you one of my favorites, a beautiful old folktale called Stone Soup that comes to us from the mists of pre-modern Europe. It goes like this:

Some weary travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food with the travelers because there had been a drought in that place for several years and their stores were dwindling. Then the travelers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone into it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful and which they would be delighted to share with the villager, although it still needs a little bit of garnish, which they are missing, to improve the flavor.

The villager, who anticipates enjoying a share of the soup, does not mind parting with a few carrots, so these are added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which has not yet reached its full potential. But it could. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient, like potatoes, onions, cabbages, celery, sweetcorn, meat, milk, butter, salt, and pepper. Finally, the stone (being inedible) is removed from the pot, and a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by travelers and villagers alike. And with their stomachs full, everyone in the village sleeps well that night.

I love that story. And I think it's the perfect way to sum up the early days of Skookum. These first eight magical years have been about sharing, about collaborating, about learning what we might be capable of accomplishing together, about a community rising up to say with one voice: "We will make certain that every child from our town has a safe place to call home, a family who loves them, and a chance to make their dreams come true. Because we can do better. We must do better. Our kids deserve better."

So together, we built this thing that we call Skookum Kids to make that happen. We each gave, volunteered, or signed up to be on a committee, or invited friends to an event, came to a thank you note writing party, or hosted a mini-fundraiser in our living room. We each did what we could. Because that's what we do when our village is hungry. We bring together what we have, and we do the best we can.

And sure enough, each contribution—large or small—melded together beautifully and became even more than any of us could have expected or envisioned beforehand. And along the way, we were each blessed too. We made friends, found purpose, and together we built the kind of community we want for our own children and our grandchildren.

Generosity will do that. It puts shoes on a child, and a song in your heart along the way.

Now, I know it could be hard to see that from this vantage. It takes decades. This pot cannot be rushed. If you’re not at the Landing every month or a foster family yourself, you don’t have the honor of bearing witness when a healing child's personality blossoms for the first time. But there is nothing more sacred, and it signals the change that’s coming, the change that we’re making together.

So I hope that these stories we share by video and through social media can be the reminder that you need. Because we're working together at the root cause of some of society's biggest and hardest problems.

So far this year, our community's generosity is tracking closely to 2021 levels. But it costs a lot more to take care of vulnerable kids now than it did a year ago. For years it only cost $100 per child per night to operate The Landing. That's not true anymore. Today it's at least $120 per child per night. And if you’ve been to Costco or put gas in your car lately, I’m sure you understand why.

And the terms of our contracts with the State of Washington and our revenue in general has not gone up by 20%. To be honest, that's scary. In some ways, it feels like we're back where we started, out in the cold with an empty pot and a stone.

But it also means that the future of Skookum will be built in the same way that our storied past has been, through a community, a collection of individuals who each say: "I believe in what we're doing here together, and I want to help."

If you’d like to help, there are a few ways to go about it right now.

By far, our favorite is a monthly pledge of support which you can setup at skookumkids.org/give. Faithful monthly giving creates a stable foundation of support, so that we can plan for the future with confidence.

Would you make a gift or a pledge right now?