By Jacob Dimond
jake@yelmonline.com
YCS 1st Coalition launched last month with a clear mission statement to raise local awareness on the importance of passing the upcoming Yelm Community Schools educational programs and operations (EP&O) levy in February 2025. It took a step in the right direction on Wednesday, Nov. 20, raising $45,640 to support the syndicate’s cause.
Doug Jaquez, president of YCS 1st Coalition, said the event at the Yelm Community Center was to bring community members together and discuss what needs to be done to pass the upcoming levy. In addition, the event featured an auction and cash call to raise funds to increase the likelihood of passing a levy in Yelm.
“We brought a lot of community members together, a lot of old school and new school community members, and we had a lot of school staff involved. I don’t know the number, but there were between 80 to 85 people that attended,” Jaquez said. “That’s what happens when you bring the town together and not ignore them. We can do a lot of things in this town. We talked about a lot of things about what we’re going to do. Right now, we have our social media going, but social media is just one tiny component to get this thing passed.”
Jaquez said the auction featured around 10 different items, including a cord of wood that sold for $5,500, two sets of Seahawks tickets and items from Yelm Cinemas and Stewart’s Meats.
“We had a fine print from Neo Brown. She was an artist in town married to Jerry Brown, who used to be the vet in Yelm. She had a Fabergé egg in the Smithsonian. She passed away quite a few years ago, and one of her prints went up for auction,” Jaquez said. “My wife, Kasandra, and I got that one, and that was a great item.”
Following the fundraiser, YCS 1st Coalition is gearing up for the Christmas in the Park parade on Saturday, Dec. 7, as it currently seeks community members to be part of the parade exhibit. Jaquez added that the coalition will hand out T-shirts at the parade.
“Once we get past all of the holidays, that’s when the real work kicks in. Between sign waving, door knocking, being at all of the events at the schools, attending town halls, there’s many different things that we plan on doing to get the word out to get this levy passed,” Jaquez said.
“Any funds that are left over after passing the levy will stay in the bank, accrue interest, and when the school is ready to pass another levy or bond there’s already a war chest already started. All this group would have to do at that point is pick up and move.”
According to Jaquez, the coalition seeks to provide important information about the upcoming EP&O levy in order to “get the vote out.”
“It’s all about getting the vote out. The thing we have to deal with is we’re always going to have no voters, and it’s usually going to be the same group. We know there’s a lot of people who won’t change their vote, but what we’re doing is putting out the facts about the levy,” Jaquez said. “I think because of the levy failure, people already know the impact. The impact of the second levy failure just wasn’t communicated. I think with that, in addition to coming up with the facts on what the levy is, how it impacts you financially, what the money is used for, to try to turn around some no voters to yes voters.
“The biggest thing is we’re in a February election cycle, which is usually considered a very dull cycle because there’s typically not many things on the ballot. It may only be the levy, but we want to get the vote out,” Jaquez continued. “Our main goal is to get more people motivated to vote yes.”
Those interested in the YCS 1st Coalition’s efforts can join its Facebook group “Yelm Community Schools First Coalition,” or visit its website at www.YelmCommunitySchools1stCoalition.com.
“Within that group, we have a place to sign up for volunteers,” Jaquez said. “We have a volunteer coordinator, so whenever we have certain activities going on we’ll be doing calls to action to get people involved. We want to blanket this town with why we have to pass this levy.”
Once the holiday season winds down, Jaquez said the coalition will focus on highlighting how the levy failure has impacted Yelm Community Schools.
“We want to school what the district was pre-levy failure and post-levy failure. If we don’t pass this levy, it’s going to get worse. The first cuts have already started. If we do pass the levy, it’s going to take us a while to get out of the woods because even after we pass it we don’t get those funds until after a period of time because the state needs to collect those funds before it goes to the schools,” Jaquez said. “The main thing is if we don’t pass this levy, if you think we have it rough now, the cuts are going to go even deeper if we don’t pass it. Once we start getting a school system that doesn’t have its resources, that’s when people are going to start considering if they need to move out of this town. Families aren’t going to want to move to a town where its school system isn’t well-funded.”
