Connecting People, Building Community at KPCS

We’re helping people every day here.”

When Robyn Readwin took over leadership of Key Peninsula Community Services just over a year ago, one of her priorities was deceptively simple: Get to know people.

She wanted to know more than names; she wanted to know why people walk through the doors of the Lakebay community center, what keeps them coming back, and what they may need next.

“Probably just learning everybody and meeting everybody here,” Readwin said, made her most proud during her first year. “Knowing why they come here and why this place is important to them.”

Her door, she said, is always open for participants and staff.

“And they come, they do,” she said. “They talk to me all day long.”

That accessibility is one of the things KPCS participant and board member Jackie Furrey believes distinguishes Readwin’s leadership. “Robyn wants to know all of us; she is with us,” she said.

Furrey described Readwin as energetic, ingenious, and full of creative new ideas. But perhaps more important is her ability to recognize what other people can contribute. Readwin is particularly skilled at finding the right people, Furrey said, and cultivating their talents so they can use them for the good of the organization and community.

“I think we are all like iron filings and Robyn is the magnet that brings us together,” Furrey said.

That metaphor fits an organization whose mission is “Connecting People to Build Community.”

Founded in 1982, KPCS operates a food bank, senior meal program, and active senior center. The agency combines meeting basic needs with opportunities for social, recreational, and educational connection.

Under Readwin, that connection can sometimes look a lot like summer camp.

For the second year, KPCS offered a series of “Senior Summer Camp” themes, built largely on creativity and community connection on a shoestring budget.

“We have no budget for it,” Readwin said. “These are the things that we can offer for nothing, basically.”

Activities have ranged from tie-dye to “Mocktails and Masterpieces” and a Hawaiian luau. One week this summer focused on local farms, including a visit to Finally Home Farm, owned by Audrey and Mike Graf.

The partnership came together in characteristic Readwin fashion. She spotted Audrey Graf outside the farm one day, so she stopped and asked whether KPCS could bring over a busload of seniors. Graf’s response, Readwin recalled, was essentially: “When?”

The farm visit joined a growing list of KPCS activities designed to do more than fill a calendar. Readwin sees social connection itself as an important part of health, particularly for older adults.

That philosophy recently helped KPCS secure $43,000 in behavioral health funding through Pierce County Aging and Disability Resources. Readwin said that senior center programming belongs in that conversation.

“This is behavioral health,” she said. “This is socialization. This is beating isolation. This is lifting spirits. We’re helping people every day here.”

This new funding will help support community nights that expand gathering beyond traditional senior center hours. Although seniors remain the primary population served under the grant, Readwin envisions intergenerational evenings where participants can bring children and grandchildren for games, dancing, and other activities.

Readwin is also working to bring Emotions Anonymous to KPCS, adding to support groups already available in the community. Not everyone can afford therapy or has a strong support system, she said, but people still need places where they can talk, listen, and become comfortable participating.

Furrey sees that work as Readwin advocating for senior mental health at a distinctly local level.

“Participants and staff feel so respected and so seen by Robyn,” Furrey said.

Readwin’s people-first approach is paired with something less visible to those stopping by for lunch or an afternoon activity: the administrative work required to operate a successful nonprofit.

Before coming to KPCS, Readwin worked as an executive assistant for several nonprofits and spent time in county government. Her background in executive-level support and administration, she said, prepared her for much of the behind-the-scenes work required to operate an agency.

That includes seeking grants and additional funding, managing staff, working with government agencies, and developing partnerships with other organizations and local businesses.

Those relationships often have tangible results. Readwin recalled learning, through local connections, that Devoted Kiss Café of Gig Harbor was offering its paid employees the opportunity to volunteer in the community while its building underwent a full remodel. She quickly volunteered the KPCS kitchen as a place that could use them and their expertise.

For approximately two and a half months, KPCS received volunteer labor from the staff of Devoted Kiss Café. “We knew it was a tremendous gift. We cherished the time we had with their volunteers,” Readwin said.

KPCS itself is also going through a period of transition and growth. Cat Raslavsky has stepped into the role of food bank manager while Jamie Beimford is the new head cook.

Readwin is particularly focused on stabilizing funding for the food pantry, which she said remains underfunded even as demand for its services continues to grow.

“It works. It always works. It always will work. It’s not going anywhere,” she said, while acknowledging the constant challenge of finding enough resources to let the program “breathe a little bit.”

KPCS plans to hold its annual Feast or Famine dinner this fall to continue building connections with the community and raising funds for its vital work. Volunteers remain another pressing need, particularly people willing to help with kitchen prep and the physical work of moving food in the pantry.

Readwin has lived on the Key Peninsula for more than 20 years, first in Longbranch and later farther north on the peninsula. She raised her family here and has no desire to move away.

“I hope to never leave this place,” she said. “I love it so much.”

At KPCS, she has found a job that allows her to put that affection for the community into practice — part administrator, part fundraiser, part connector and, occasionally, summer camp director.

The common thread is people.

“They are what makes this place happen,” she said.