KLICKITAT CO. — Joanna Turner is inspired to help young people. After raising three children as a single parent and working for a domestic violence shelter in the Columbia River Gorge, she wanted to be upstream working to prevent violence before it started. That meant finding ways to engage teens in rural communities so they are active, have a sense of purpose and belonging, enjoy better mental health, and are more resilient.
Joanna Turner, Our Klickitat
Her journey has been a personal one. She and her children moved to Trout Lake nine years ago. It was a world away from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and transitioning from a major city to rural country living was challenging for some of her children.
Her children were in sixth, fourth, and second grades when she landed in the Gorge. She was ready for a fresh start in a smaller community and loved the Pacific Northwest outdoor lifestyle. But it wasn’t easy. In school, her oldest daughter dealt with sexual harassment, and her youngest son was bullied.
“We didn’t know anybody, and it was really hard,” Turner said. “It was really important to me that my kids were supported well.” She shared that the children struggled with the change, and the family sought services to help them adapt and overcome challenges. One resource they tried with various levels of support was Washington’s Wraparound with Intensive Services (WISe) program.
She understood that giving her children caring mentors and coping strategies would help them deal with current issues and lay a path for a more positive future. She also worked with groups like the local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters, but found it hard to engage with their program in a rural community. Transportation alone was a challenge, as was the availability of mentors.
Over time, she learned about CultureSeed, a non-profit organization out of White Salmon that offers underserved youth long-term outdoor immersion and mental health programs. This was a good fit for her middle daughter, Zandra. It gave Zandra an opportunity to develop new friendships, participate in community service, create connections, and focus on community building. It also helped her develop her outdoor skills. This summer, after five years of participation, Zandra was able to intern on river trips for youth before heading off to college.
Turner became a member of the Our Klickitat prevention coalition in 2020. This group of community members shared her goals of building healthy connections, a vibrant community, and preventing youth substance misuse. The coalition started in 2016 and won its first Drug Free Communities federal grant in 2018, which was renewed for five years in 2023. Initially, she served as a coalition member and then parent representative. In 2021, she was hired to support the program director, and two years ago, she was hired to serve as the director of Our Klickitat by its fiscal agent, Washington Gorge Action Programs (WAGAP).
Since 2020, Our Klickitat has engaged with CultureSeed. CultureSeed directly serves the region’s youth by offering free and ongoing activities and mental health programs. Our Klickitat coalition financially supports those services.
In the August/September Washington 1889 magazine article about CultureSeed, Turner shared how the program’s transportation policy “from the front door to the outdoors and back” made her daughter’s participation possible. The article also noted, “Knowing that her daughter is engaged in healthy, sober activities brings Turner peace of mind.”
Yesenia Castro, co-executive director of CultureSeed, said the two organizations complement each other by combining CultureSeed’s expertise in meeting youth where they are through youth empowerment activities and building trust with Our Klickitat’s focus on investing in youth services.
“Together, we are ensuring our community’s youth have access to healthy alternatives and mental health services that improve their overall well-being,” Castro said. She added that these services are provided at no cost to families.
With the new school year starting, Our Klickitat and CultureSeed teams are in full swing again as teens enter the classrooms and deal with changing stressors. CultureSeed needs more therapists and peer circle facilitators to help with a queer youth group for White Salmon and a young men’s circle facilitator. For updated information on open positions, go to www.cultureseed.org/jobs.
Our Klickitat is seeking new coalition members and sector leaders to join their efforts. “I’m always looking for ways that I can support youth in the outlying areas of the county, like Bickleton and other small schools,” Turner said. Recently, the coalition was part of a larger WAGAP team working with the Local Healthcare Authority to host “Facing Fentanyl Together” events that educated the public on prevention, harm reduction, treatment, recovery, and community support. The goal was to prepare individuals who may have to respond to an opioid or fentanyl crisis to act quickly and potentially save a life.
Turner reflected on the impact CultureSeed has had on her family and youth involved with Our Klickitat. “I think that every parent who’s had a child involved in CultureSeed for the last few years would say that it’s made a huge difference for their kids,” she said. “CultureSeed has cultivated a sense of community for the youth that they haven’t been able to find anywhere else. It’s given them a sense of belonging that they need to be successful and to feel hope. It’s really beautiful.”
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