30th annual Community Summit: March 13, 2025
Pearls of Wisdom: Celebrating 30 Years of Community & Connection
Thank you to the Sumner-Bonney Lake community for showing up to celebrate 30 years of community and connection at the 30th annual Communities for Families Community Summit on March 13.
More than 200 attendees participated in having coffee with our community leaders, speaking with representatives from local organizations at the Opportunity Fair, sharing valued input at breakout sessions on topics ranging from community holiday support to student homelessness, and being inspired to be kind through Dr. Gene Sharratt. Also recognized were our Community Unsung Heroes:
Thank you to our sponsors, including: City of Sumner, City of Bonney Lake, Sumner-Bonney Lake School District, Calvary Community Church, Kiwanis Club of Bonney Lake, Rotary Club of Sumner, Judi Richardson, Phil DeLeo, Windmill Gardens, Knutson Farms Inc., Dr. Laurie Dent, Hill and Anderson Family Fund, Watsons Wooden Words, Ryan Windish, and the Gordon Family YMCA.
The impact of 30 years of the Community Summit
The Communities for Families Community Summit has made a lasting impact on the Sumner and Bonney Lake communities by forging partnerships and change for more than 30 years.
Congratulations to the 2025 Unsung Hero Award winners:
Shaniah Andal
Bonney Lake High School junior
Shaniah, a Bonney Lake High School junior, has been making a powerful difference in our community behind the scenes. One especially significant difference is her desire to start a campaign to reduce student use of vaping.
She wrote, and successfully earned, a $12,000 grant from the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department to create an anti-vaping campaign, called BE MORE.
As part of this campaign, Shaniah has been working tirelessly to create an opportunity for those who have an addiction to change, to create a peaceful option to quit, to create quick kits in order to positively impact those who have an addiction, and create videos for people to understand vaping and its addiction.
As if this important anti-vaping campaign isn’t enough, Shaniah is also active in other activities, such as the ASB tech coordinator, president of the journalism club, member on a design committee for the Bonney Lake High School expansion project and part of a Pierce County prevention collaboration.
With her passion for social justice and services, Shaniah has a bright future making an amazing impact.
Jeremy E.
Bonney Lake High School senior
Jeremy is well-versed in parliamentary procedure with his many roles in student government at Bonney Lake High School, roles that include many acts of service and leadership.
Jeremy is very active in Key Club as secretary, with his most impressive contribution leading the club’s We Scare Hunger event, where members trick-or-treated for canned food on Halloween, collecting over 1,600 pounds of food in just three hours. A third student government role is with the National Honors Society as president, where Jeremy helps organize volunteer opportunities for members throughout the community.
Outside of his school leadership and service activities, Jeremy recently started volunteering at a homeless shelter, where he discovered he can help translate for many of the individuals there, helping them feel more heard during their difficult time.
With a clear passion for serving his community, Jeremy has accrued over 200 hours of community service in just this year alone. The variety of ways he has served this community is very impressive considering he is also taking 8 advanced placement classes this year, which is more than his nominator, a Bonney Lake High School advanced placement teacher, has known any other student to take on.
Zoee M.
Sumner High School senior
There are very few events at Sumner High School where you will not see Zoee. A part of the school’s ASB leadership team, she is a HUGE part of the Spartan servant leadership culture.
Always leading with a smile, Zoee has been the student coordinator for the school’s Food Bowl, Homecoming Heroes and the SERVUS Conference the past two years. This fabulous leader has taken the school to new levels of community support and community service.
Zoee works hard to balance cheer, ASB, academics, managing girls soccer, volunteering with local hospitals and developing relationships with her peers, teachers and coaches. Part of this balance has resulted in Zoee being part of back-to-back academic state champions with the Sumner High School cheer team.
From supporting the Spartans through cheer or most likely serving as the leader of an event, we all benefit from her choice to love and serve Sumner High School staff and students. Her impact on our school and our community extends well beyond what any of us can imagine. We are proud to call her a Spartan.
Joe Haggerty
From a bomber weapons systems officer to a welcoming presence at Bonney Lake High School, Major Joe Haggerty has earned high praise from his colleagues and students. After spending 23 years in the Air Force, Joe is now Bonney Lake High School’s JROTC senior aerospace instructor, where he has changed the lives of many students, helping them overcome challenges while providing a place to fit it.
This also extends beyond the classroom. Joe has added and coordinates numerous community events with service opportunities for his cadets. Here is how some of the students and fellow teachers describe this inspirational JROTC instructor:
- He makes all of us in class feel welcomed
- He is a constant inspiration for students
- He helps and supports his cadets with everything
- He has built awesome relationships with students and staff members
Prior to Joe’s decades-long career in the Air Force, he taught high school for one year. He always knew he would return to teaching after the military. So when the JROTC job at Bonney Lake opened up, he realized he could still stay connected to the Air Force while living in a wonderful place and doing a job that he loved. Joe says, “I couldn't ask for a better situation.”
Congratulations, Joe. Your dedication and work behind the scenes never goes unnoticed.
Matthew McDonnell
Matt has a gift for making meaningful connections—the kind that make all people, of all ages, skills, and abilities, feel valued and seen. He knows names, remembers stories, and ensures every interaction leaves people feeling like they matter.
So who is Matt and where can we find this remarkable individual? He’s the Senior Youth Director with the Gordon Family YMCA, where he consistently demonstrates the organization’s values through his leadership, mentorship, and unwavering dedication to the well-being of our community.
Matt oversees programs that directly serve hundreds of youth in our community, providing values-based opportunities that nurture the spirit, mind, and body.
From youth sports that build character and confidence to fostering inclusive spaces where every person feels they belong, Matt helps strengthen our community.
Matt’s passion for building a stronger, healthier community is inspiring. His programs and leadership leave a lasting impact, and his work is a testament to the profound difference one individual can make in the lives of so many.
Skip & Mary Lee Sherwood
We now have the pleasure of learning how Trilogy Serves came about. Well, it’s all because of Trilogy resident Skip Sherwood and his super volunteer wife, Mary Lee.
It was back in 2017 when Skip organized a small group of his neighbors and took on leadership of Trilogy Serves, an organization that has mobilized residents living in Tehaleh’s Trilogy community to go out and help those in need.
Skip chaired and was a member of Trilogy Serves for 4 years along with Mary Lee. The group’s size has since increased and leadership has transitioned to other members.
Skip and Mary Lee continue to raise money and collect donations for numerous local organizations, and they have also given their time and talents through volunteering at holiday and back-to-school events, as well as the Sumner-Bonney Lake Education Foundation.
Skip and Mary Lee have become role models for all of us who wonder what we can do to make the world around us a much better place. Their volunteerism has made our family support work possible on many occasions — and blessed thousands of children, youth and families over the last decade.
Toys for Kids
When the lead agency was unexpectedly unable to continue a yearslong tradition of holiday gift donation coordination, a few determined volunteers stepped up with a solution to partner with the local nonprofit organization, Toys for Kids.
The need was great — to support hundreds of children and teens in the greater Sumner-Bonney Lake area. The time was October — a whopping two months to scramble to meet this need.
The Community Unsung Hero is Toys for Kids, but behind this effort is East Pierce Fire & Rescue’s Dina Sutherland, the Gordon Family YMCA’s Jenna Lehman, Sumner Police Chief Brad Moericke and the Sumner-Bonney Lake School District’s Marilee Hill-Anderson. We also want to thank Arlene Evavold, Trisha Sweeney and the Emmanuel Food Pantry for helping this project provide meals to many families served by this project.
Thanks to these project leaders and organizations, along with dozens of volunteers and hundreds of donors, Toys for Kids was a tremendous success this past holiday season. Here’s a by-the-numbers recap of the success:
- 223 families served with 500 children receiving gifts at the Toys for Kids event
- 330 additional toys distributed directly to schools
- 24 bikes
- 75 meal vouchers
A word of note and to put a bug in everyone’s ear: The team is looking for a new partner this upcoming holiday season in an effort to better match gift requests. The need, effort and excitement continues.
Trilogy Serves
They exist to connect their neighborhood with our local community and its needs. They’re called Trilogy Serves, a club comprising residents who live in the 55 and over Trilogy subdivision within Tehaleh.
From providing ways to volunteer, donate and participate in fundraising events and activities, Trilogy Serves supports local nonprofit organizations, helping those in need.
While the club does tremendous work communitywide, Trilogy Serves was specifically nominated for the Community Unsung Hero Award for their more than $7,000 donation of gift cards this holiday season to middle and high school students experiencing homelessness in Sumner-Bonney Lake School District.
Thanks to Elaine, Pat, Debra and their team within Trilogy Serves, this meaningful and generous donation made it possible for these students to buy themselves something for the holidays. Some students even used the gift cards to buy their family members gifts so they had something to open on Christmas.
We are incredibly grateful for this very impactful donation and for the ongoing, year-round support of Trilogy Serves.
Thursday, March 13
4-8:15 PM
Calvary Community Church
15116 Gary St. E., Sumner
Join Sumner-Bonney Lake neighbors, community leaders, youth, and human service organizations to become informed about local issues, inspired to create solutions, and involved in taking action. The free event features breakout sessions, a free catered dinner, Unsung Hero awards and keynote speaker.
Event Schedule
4 pm - Doors open for registration
4-5 pm - Key Community Leaders Cafe
5-6 pm - Breakout Sessions:
- Shaping Sumner: Updates on Major Developments
- City of Bonney Lake Community Forum
- Community Holiday Support
- Reality of Student Homelessness: Challenges & Resilience
- Community Kindness Campaign
- Senior Property Tax Exemption
6:15 to 8:15 pm - Dinner, Presentations, Community Unsung Hero Awards & Keynote Speaker Gene Sharratt: “Building Vibrant Communities Through Hope and Service”
Keynote Speaker, Gene Sharratt
Help our community and join the Hygiene Drive!
