Gig Harbor Women’s Co-op Celebrates Its First Year

This is a sisterhood, we are not a club.”

Jillian O’Block has every reason to be proud. From a state of feeling overwhelmed and isolated, she and a team of other women have created a connected community of hundreds of women in Gig Harbor and on the Key Peninsula. Her brainchild, the Gig Harbor Women’s Co-op, celebrates its first anniversary as a nonprofit this month.

O’Block, a former bartender and neurodivergent — she is autistic and has ADHD — moved to Gig Harbor from Vashon Island in 2015 and had difficulty finding a sense of community. The demands of parenting four children, maintaining a household, and managing work were overwhelming.

She noticed other women posting on Facebook had similar experiences, and in 2023 she launched a group on Facebook that became the Gig Harbor Women’s Co-op, focusing on women with children in the Peninsula School District.

Within a few months, she heard from women without children or whose kids were grown who were interested in joining. “It got me thinking, not all women choose their parental status, and women aren’t valuable based on whether or not they have children,” O’Block said.

“So we expanded to all women and added tasks. We organized little by little with a lot of help from women who work very differently from me. We put our strengths together.”

While the Facebook group has grown from a few hundred to 1,300, much of the organizing and connection now happens through its website. “Many of our Facebook members are curious and checking us out,” O’Block said. “They are waiting to see how we work.”

Women can officially join the co-op via an onboarding process, which includes a background check, an invitation to private events and participation in a time bank, a key concept for the organization.

“I love the concept of the time bank because you can see everything,” O’Block said. “We live in a society that depends on a type of currency, which is the dollar. People have a hard time without something that represents currency. Time is our currency. It can’t have inflation, and it puts us all on the same level — we are all valued at the same rate.”

Hours spent volunteering for community efforts can be recorded in the time bank. Women with more time available can contribute their hours to be used by others. “We are all in different seasons of our lives; we don’t all have the same 24 hours; and we don’t have the same skills,” O’Block said.

Members have formed side groups — a book club, a cold water plunge group, a hiking group. They have worked with local nonprofits to volunteer at fundraising or clean-up events.

“I met with Jillian, and got completely sucked in,” said Kim Anderson, executive vice president of the co-op. “I started with smaller things and then jumped in when they began the process to become a nonprofit. I have not looked back.”

“This is a sisterhood,” Anderson said. “We are not a club.”

Alicia Grubbs, the co-op’s chief community officer, learned about the co-op through Facebook. She went to an orientation and three days later was at O’Block’s house planting in the garden.

“I realized, Oh my gosh, these are my people,” Grubbs said. “With the co-op, I’m not only volunteering my time; I’m creating relationships.”

Members run the gamut from stay-at-home moms to professionals, from young to retired across the socioeconomic spectrum.

The co-op now has a physical space near Peninsula High School, donated by a member, to host events and classes and potentially make it into a community workspace.

Wauna resident Nicole Yamashiro followed the Facebook page and went through the orientation about six months ago. Self-employed, an introvert working from home, it was hard to make friends, she said. “The goal is to make everyone feel included the way they want to be included. Everyone feels valued. It is a unique situation.” She also appreciates that there is no pressure to commit to a minimum number of hours.

O’Block hopes to expand. “I would like to double our numbers every year and expand with the development of chapters in geographic areas,” O’Block said.

Yamashiro is drawn to O’Block’s vision of expansion. “If they make it work in every little city, how powerful is that? What an impact it would have,” she said. “There is a big picture and women need that.”

The co-op held its first orientation at the Key Center Library in April. For more information, go to gigharborwc.org or its Facebook page.