Washougal Community Center to close temporarily for downtown revitalization project

The downtown revitalization project will create outdoor community spaces, an off-leash dog park, a pocket park, a splash pad, children’s play elements, and improved and expanded public parking, according to a news release.

The City expects to begin the bidding process for the remainder of the project later this year and begin full-scale construction in January 2025. The City is hoping the project will be completed by the end of 2025 or early 2026.

Meals on Wheels scrambles to find temporary home

Meals on Wheels People is a Portland-based service organization that prepares meals and delivers them to dozens of dining centers throughout Multnomah, Washington and Clark counties, where they are served to older adults on-site or sent out to older adults who are homebound.

Chelsea Kyle, the manager of the group’s Washougal center, arranged to move her services, which also include a weekly food bank, to The Outpost in Washougal after being notified of the community center’s impending closure.

Then Kyle learned in September that the Washington Pacific Church of the Nazarene, the Tumwater, Washington-based owners of The Outpost, had decided to sell the building and close The Outpost at the end of October.

“I was just shocked because I just really was not expecting that,” Kyle said. “I really just got settled in (at The Outpost). I had to change my delivery days, so that shook things up for my clients and volunteers. To hear that I had to switch things up again left me pretty startled and a little frantic because of the timeframe. I didn’t have much time to make other arrangements.”

Kyle quickly pivoted to her “Plan B” — St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Washougal.

“I had also been talking to St. Anne’s, and they were really receptive to hosting us,” Hyle said. After learning about The Outpost’s closure, Kyle reached out to Annie Calhoun, the vicar at St. Anne’s in Washougal, and Calhoun told her to come over and they could work out the details.

The Meals on Wheels People’s Washougal branch will operate out of The Outpost through Oct. 31, and then open at St. Anne’s on Nov. 4. Kyle will use the church as base to coordinate home deliveries and host weekly food banks (from noon to 1 p.m. on Mondays), but will not serve a weekly lunch like she did at the community center.

“I just don’t know if I can work out the schedule,” she said. “Had we done this months ago, maybe we could have worked it out, but now that we’re changing halfway, it’s just too much. We won’t have any lunch (at St. Anne’s). Of course, everybody has been very upset about not having in-person lunches. There’s just not much I can do about it.”

Kyle said her biggest challenge has been rearranging her home delivery schedules, adding that she drives regularly between her still-available office at the community center and another Meals on Wheels People office in Battle Ground.

“It’s only been a week, but so far, things have been good,” Irvin said. “(The new locations) were very accommodating. This is what happens a lot of the time in small communities — people want to help other people out. That’s the way it should be.”

Refuel Washougal moves to St. Anne’s during closure

Refuel Washougal, a nonprofit that provides people in need with free weekly meals and access to shelter in the event of severe weather, has also temporarily moved to St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Washougal.

Fran Whitmeyer, a Refuel board member and former St. Anne’s senior warden, said the church has been very welcoming.

“I talked to Annie (Calhoun), and she brought it up immediately to the bishops’ committee, which is the ruling body of St. Anne’s,” Whitmeyere said. “I just followed protocol, and they took a vote, and they said ‘Yes, we will do what we have to do, to support Refuel and to bring it to St. Anne’s, because we have the entrance way for people and we have a big enough place.’ St. Anne’s has a fairly large parish hall, and we’re using about half of it.”

The guests are dealing with “a few different rules that we didn’t have before,” Whitmeyer said.

“Because we don’t have a commercial dishwasher, we are serving everything on disposable paper plates. We (provide) trays, but they cannot eat on the trays. They have to pick up all of their items, put them on the table, and then take the trays back so they can be washed and sanitized.”

Whitmeyer said the changes may cause a few issues, but the group is trying to make the best of the situation.

“Because we have changed, there will be people with problems,” she said. “Because we’re at a church, there are people that have a problem with that. (We have) people who are claustrophobic. They just have to come inside and sit down and eat. And because it’s a tighter quarters than the community center, people are getting to know new people, so that’s a plus.”

The volunteers also have a few new rules to follow, including restrictions on certain types of food and a smaller area to prepare food in, Whitmeyer said.

Refuel, which serves meals from 4 to 6 p.m. every Friday, opened for business at St. Anne’s on Sept. 13, serving 54 people, a decrease from the 100 to 120 people it usually serves.

“We’re not doing to-go (meals anymore),” Whitmeyer said. “When we did 100 or 125, sometimes we were feeding only 40 or 50 and the rest of them were walking out the door.”

When the group announced that to-go meals would be unavailable — a permanent change for Refuel — starting with the temporary move to St. Anne’s.

Whitmeyer said she is looking forward to going back to the Washougal Community Center after the renovations.

“My understanding is that they will not be doing anything in the kitchen, so the kitchen will be the same when we get back. We are very lucky to have a commercial kitchen to serve the community out of,” she said. o