Everett's women-focused vision

Two years ago, Kerri Mallams set a goal to build the Women's Wellness Center in Everett by 2007.

Dreams do come true. The grand opening awaits a few finishing touches by the contractor.

A lot is happening at 2817 Rockefeller Ave. in downtown Everett, and it speaks volumes about the community's confident sense of itself.

Outside, the weathered sign preserved across the refurbished two-story building still reads "Betty Spooner's School of Dance," a civic keepsake, and a fine blend of new and old for a city in full launch mode.

Building heights are going up and so are the condos. Here is another city in hot pursuit of people to live, work and play downtown, which makes the polished and professional Women's Wellness Center a perfect fit. Close to home or close to work, either way.

Sounds so easy, but there is more going on here than circuit training, spa services and healthy-lifestyle classes. This is all part of Mallams' tenacious vision for women's health, in settings that are women-focused with access for all women.

She is the executive director of Positive Women's Network (PWN), a private, nonprofit agency dedicated to health care and social services for low-income women and women with life-threatening diseases.

We first met in a small, gray-and-white house at 37th and Broadway on the south edge of the city. That office had been a big leap forward from PWN's start in her living room, and, later, in donated space over a Snohomish pharmacy.

For more than a decade, PWN has been a reliable source of medical referrals, free annual health exams and mammograms, disease prevention and education, and support for women with debilitating illnesses. PWN reaches thousands of women in King, Snohomish, Skagit, San Juan, Island and Whatcom counties.

Given a long-established record of service, Mallams expected a fundraising campaign to go better than it did. Foundation response was scant, with the Tulalips and Norcliffe Foundation notable exceptions. Institutional interest in women's health issues apparently had its limits.

For all intents, Mallams was undeterred. As contracts with health-care providers grew into a stable base, the decision was made to go ahead with the Women's Wellness Center powered by memberships on a sliding scale. PWN moved into office space inside the center to seal the commitment.

Location, location, location might not be a meditation for yoga classes, but it represents the, well, karma moving the vision ahead. The center is on the ground floor of a building bought in 2005 by the "very philanthropic" — to use Mallams' words — Morrie Trautman.

Upstairs is the hallowed space of Betty Spooner's School of Dance, where she tutored generations of dancers. Her son, Mike Jordan, took over the business — or, perhaps, family calling — for nearly four decades more.

Jordan, who died in 2004, was immortalized in bronze in a soft-shoe pose last June in front of the Everett Performing Arts Center. That rich legacy continues since 2006 with The Dance Studio offering classes up a flight of stairs.

I have not heard Mallams use the word herself, but the mission of PWN and the Women's Wellness Center seems all the more important as I read about a nationwide decline in women getting mammograms to screen for breast cancer.

Here is a female-friendly place for women perhaps returning to exercise classes for the first time since high school. Circuit training, fitness coaching, massage therapy, lifestyle coaching, nutritional counseling and cooking classes are in proximity of a basic concern about women's health.

One way the center has raised money is with the sale of Bead Positive key chains that feature wooden and glass beads corresponding to the size of breast lumps found by accident, down to a much smaller mass that can be detected by a yearly mammogram.

First I winced, then I got the message.

Given the mission of Positive Women's Network and its history of success, I would expect the Women's Wellness Center to flourish, and, most importantly, be valued. I cannot fathom that foundations will not spot something that works and step forward with support.

The tenacity of spirit behind the Women's Wellness Center is a perfect fit with Everett's civic trajectory.