Hopelink has signed the lease on a great new facility in the Totem Lake area of Kirkland. It will provide a new home for both our Northshore and our Kirkland Hopelink Centers – and Adult Education’s ABE and ESL programs will both join them there. Hopelink’s Bellevue Center across the street has happily made room for our Lifelong Learning Coordinator and for our Computer Education Coordinator.

We are not new to change. Those of you who have volunteered with our program for more than ten years will remember us first as Eastside Literacy Council – a grassroots organization that focused on Adult literacy and language acquisition. Our 2000 merger with Hopelink was a huge change. It required many adjustments. But it also opened the door for us to offer our adult students access to a wide range of life-changing services. And it provided Hopelink clients with access to educational support to help them overcome barriers to their success.

We are looking forward to our upcoming move with the same expectation: that it will provide opportunities for us to refine our programs to serve our clients even better. And we will not be absent from Bellevue. Even after we relocate, we will still be offering classes and trainings across the street from our present location – at Hopelink’s Bellevue Center. Again there will be many changes. But the one constant that assures success is our most valuable resource: our wonderful volunteers.

We are expecting to move into our new Kirkland home towards the end of July, and to be “open for business” in August. We’ll keep you apprised of the timing, but we hope that you will all be able to drop by to take a tour of our new site and to help us celebrate at our official open house (probably in September.)

Thank you in advance for your support of this exciting new chapter of our work in Adult Education.

One of the hardest parts of our move is that we will no longer have an opportunity for people to volunteer at our front desk. But what amazing work you all have done over the years – answering our phones, greeting our clients, scheduling our many appointments, and taking on a whole range of special projects -- data entry, typing, copying, laminating, and more!

We are so grateful to all of our volunteers for their many hours of service but especially to those who have helped us at the front desk. We truly could not have served our clients so well without your tireless efforts.

As with any reorganization, some opportunities leave and new ones appear – and there will be many changes in the coming months. If the volunteer position you have filled in the past is no longer open, we hope that you might consider working with us in another capacity.