SEQUIM — Mary Budke will talk about kids all day long — and less so about herself.
“This isn’t really about me,” she said. “This is about this place, its mission.”
Over the last 20 years, Budke has worked her way up in the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula, starting as summer help in the Sequim Carroll C. Kendall Unit kitchen to become CEO of the organization.
Under her leadership, the Sequim and Port Angeles clubs have grown in numbers and helped build and move into a new Port Angeles club in 2021.
Budke didn’t want to mark her anniversary with the clubs in June, but after friends’ encouragement, the staff and friends presented her with a cake and kind words.
Through her years with the organization, Budke has helped create a safe place for a countless number of children.
“We are very lucky to have someone so dedicated to serving the youth in our community,” said Nicole Pruden, a former club member and staffer who now works as the Sequim Village First Fed branch manager.
“She cares deeply for every club member and has helped so many develop into productive citizens who want to give back.”
Longtime Sequim club volunteer Stephen Rosales said he’s known Budke through her tenure, saying she’ll do anything for children.
“She’s not the type to sit behind her desk,” he said.
That includes putting bandages on, fetching shoes, finding housing, filling in worker shifts and more.
“This town is so blessed to have her,” Rosales said. “She was meant to be (CEO).”
The clubs’ board president, Norma Turner, has worked hand-in-hand with Budke to help fundraise for the clubs and to build the Port Angeles Club, named the Turner unit after her and husband Gene.
“Mary amazes me,” Turner said. “She has a strong work ethic and cares about people.
“She walks in the clubhouse, knows kids’ names and knows about them. Her ability to relate to people is phenomenal.”
Kitchen to kindergarten
A Wyoming native, Budke is one of six children, and despite helping start the Sequim club’s KinderKids program, she noted she skipped kindergarten to go straight into first grade.
“The kids think that is crazy,” she said.
She attended Idaho State University on an athletic scholarship for cross country and track, and that’s where she met her football-playing husband Steven.
The couple eventually moved to Sequim in 1994 from Reno, Nev., with their young sons Brennan and Spencer.
She said she initially didn’t work after the move to Sequim, but later went to work in the Helen Haller Elementary kitchen to support one of her sons who was having a hard time at lunch.
While she earned her master’s degree via Old Dominion University through Naval Base Kitsap — Bangor, she took a job at the Sequim club during summer 2004 to help pay her phone bill.
Her intent was to become either a grade school or middle school teacher, but she stayed on with the Sequim club to run its lunch program.
In 2007, she was asked by former executive director Todd Bale to start a kindergarten enrichment program, KinderKids.
At the time, kindergarten was half days for the Sequim School District.
“The Boys & Girls Clubs try to fill in the gaps in communities and not to duplicate other programs, so we sunsetted the program when the school district went full day (in 2015),” Budke said.
Leadership
A year into starting KinderKids, Budke said she was asked to apply for the open unit director position for Sequim, which she said is “an amazing job.”
Pruden said she started going to the Sequim club when she was 15, and with support from Budke, went on to become the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Washington State Youth of the Year in 2007.
Pruden worked at the Sequim club for about five years and said Budke always encouraged her and made her feel like she could accomplish whatever she put her mind to, including banking.
“Mary encouraged me to apply for a teller position when I didn’t think I was qualified enough,” Pruden said.
“She helped me get ready for the interview and inspired me to step outside of my comfort zone.
“I ended up getting the job and have now been in banking for 14 years.”
Budke was in the unit director position for less than two years when she was asked to serve as interim executive director for the organization.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula had seen a handful of executive directors leave the organization over a few years, and Budke said she initially said “no” to the job.
“I told the then-board president I like this job too much,” she said.
But her husband later posed the question, “If not you, then who?”
“I took it on one condition, that they start looking for someone else,” Budke said.
“Eleven months later, I did interview for the permanent CEO position. I found I could help make the club stronger.”
Longtime clubs’ board member Ken Williams said she’s “taken off running and not looked back.”
“She’s known nationally, she’s that good,” he said. “She’s made herself into one of the best executives she could be.”
Some of Budke’s significant accomplishments, Williams said, include improving local perception of the clubs and continuing the USDA Summer Food Program.
“It’s a huge undertaking, and it’s not a moneymaker,” he said. “But Mary said, ‘Yeah, but we’re feeding kids.’ And that’s Mary. Nationally, they’re using our clubs’ model.”
Clubs
The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula see as many as 375 students per day during the school year and about 300 during the summer.
Budke said numbers grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with children younger than 12.
During the initial outbreak, the club opened up to serve front-line workers’ children.
“When schools closed, we were open the next day at 8 a.m.,” she said.
However, teens 15 and older weren’t allowed at first because of space restrictions and regulations.
Today, expanding services for teens remains a priority for the clubs’ leadership, Budke said.
During the pandemic, the Sequim club added a new playground in summer 2020, and opened the Port Angeles Turner unit, an approximate 15,400-square-foot building, in March 2021.
A new Port Angeles unit was a “far-off dream,” Budke said, but in 2017, club staff shut down membership because they ran out of room due to space.
“I’m not an easy crier, but I cried that day,” she said.
“We had 183 kids, and that was the day I realized they couldn’t have an optimum experience, so we had to turn kids away.
“It also set a fire in me to find a place where we didn’t have to say, ‘You couldn’t come.’”
Budke said she, Turner and others with community, state and federal help raised $8.4 million for construction.
“I wouldn’t even let myself walk on the property when we started construction until we were 90 percent there to make me hold my feet to the fire and get the fundraising done,” Budke said.
“(The Port Angeles club is) an amazing thing,” Turner said. “When we walked in the door, it was paid for, because she cares, gets her facts straight, and she’s respected by any legislator we go see.”
Rosales said Budke knows how to do the hard part of raising funds, and donors appreciate she’ll do any job.
Thinking about her efforts, Budke said, “If you put kids first, things get real simple after that.”
National stage
Sequim club member Pearle Peterson has known Budke since she started going to the club as a 6-year-old.
“Mary was a safe person we could go to and talk to in and around the club,” she said.
Peterson has gone on to be the three-time Olympic Region Youth of the Year and was chosen to be a National Youth Talent Performer, where she’s performed across the nation for the clubs, most notably singing the national anthem at Game 2 of the 2023 World Series last Oct. 28.
Budke has been working to help Peterson apply and receive scholarships to help attend the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to study lyric theatre.
Before recording an audition video for consideration to sing at the World Series, Peterson remembered she and Budke both were wearing Boys & Girls clubs shirts.
“Hers was significantly nicer than mine, and we traded,” Peterson said.
“So she is the definition of someone who will give their shirt off their back to help.”
Helping hands
Rosales’ wife Kim, who runs the Sequim club’s Great Futures Preschool, said Budke was instrumental in helping her reopen her preschool in the Sequim club during COVID.
“(Mary said) ‘If you can’t stay where you’re at, then we have a spot if you’re willing to do it … These kids need a place to go,’” Kim Rosales said.
“And we did. We had a full class show up for the first day.”
“At the end of day, she’s such a role model to kids, especially to young women,” Peterson said.
“Mary is what keeps the club up and running. You’ll never hear it out of her mouth, but every single kid and staff will tell you that.”
Budke said she’s proud that club membership has remained $30 a year, with summer from noon to 6 p.m. free, and beforehand costing a nominal fee, with scholarships available.
“It’s for every kid,” Budke said, whether they pull up in a fancy car or walk to the club.
“They all have the same opportunity here.”
One of the main fundraisers for the clubs, Campaign for Kids, is ongoing through the end of the year.
“It’s one of my favorites because there’s not (something you receive), you’re simply giving from the heart for our daily operations,” Budke said.
For more about the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula, 400 W. Fir St., Sequim, and/or to donate, visit bgc-op.org or call 360-683-8095.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
