DAN WILSON ARTICLES PG. 6
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Dan Wilson Assists Kids of the First Place School (1998)

Charles, displaying natural leadership as President of the Sports Fan Club, has decided his creativity will flourish best in the high-tech world of Nintendo . . . after he finishes fifth grade. Dacotas figures he’ll be a mathematician or scientist, and his sixth-grade work certainly supports that hypothesis. And Tarrie has the poise and pizzazz to pull off her dream career as a professional singer. Charles, Dacotas and Tarrie are students at Seattle’s First Place School, where dreams take wings and float above the sadness and squalor in their personal lives outside the school walls. First Place School, a private, non-profit endeavor established in 1989, is a combination K-6 elementary school for homeless children and a social-services agency for their parent(s). For a few hours each weekday, they suspend their fear and that bewildering sense that another cruel twist of events could strike anytime. Before they disperse each afternoon to sardine-snug shelters, Mom’s beater car or some seedy motel room just paces away from rampant drugs and prostitution, these children feel the freedom of learning, the purpose of planning for tomorrow and the bliss of believing. And they know they have friends in Seattle Mariners catcher Dan Wilson, his wife, Annie, and the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation, who combine to sponsor the “Assists for Kids” program. Just one laser beam throw from Dan Wilson’s right arm and a First Place classroom could have a shelf full of new books or funding for a field trip. Every time a Mariners catcher throws out an opposing baserunner, Weyerhaeuser donates $250 to First Place School — and Wilson matches that with $250 of his own. In 1996, without corporate partnership, Wilson donated $100 for every runner he cut down. Then in 1997, Weyerhaeuser joined the team, increasing the gift to First Place from an already generous $3,000 in 1996 to an astounding $24,750. This past season, Mariners catchers caught 49 runners trying to steal bases, and Wilson threw out 28 of them. That meant an additional $19,250 for First Place School. The Wilsons don’t invest only their money, but they also donate their time. Annie serves on the agency’s Board of Directors and both Dan and Annie visit classrooms regularly, alternating weeks so one of them can stay home with their own three little ones. “Some of the children have come from Colorado, Utah and California, and they didn’t know Dan as a baseball player. They didn’t know that much about the Mariners,” says teacher Maryamu Eltayeb-Givens. “So they don’t think of him as a celebrity. They see him as a regular person.” To them, Dan Wilson is the one they all jockey to sit next to when they form a circle for reading time. Even the boys in class, Eltayeb-Givens reports, paid rapt attention as Dan read “The Nutcracker” and talked about the ballet. And Wilson, whose face is hidden at the Kingdome by a catcher’s mask, and whose face in high school was covered by a hockey goalie’s mask, did a pretty convincing job as Santa Claus this past Christmas at First Place, hiding behind a fluffy white beard and extra pillows padding his 6-foot-3, 202-pound frame. He offered hearty ho-ho-hos and made sure the children couldn’t see too much of his face. But those eyes apparently gave him away. You can’t fool children, and these children recognized the kindness, the warmth, the playfulness in those eyes. Santa has Dan Wilson’s eyes, they told him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he feigned. Then one time before Christmas, Wilson, who deals with signals every day in his job, came to read a story. He wore a red shirt and when he left, he tossed out a “Ho-ho-ho!” The most important signal he has sent them, though, is that he cares about them. “He’ll stick with people till the very end,” Eltayeb-Givens says, citing examples of families who have progressed from First Place and still get visits of encouragement from Dan Wilson. For a few hours each day at First Place, thanks in part to Dan and Annie Wilson, homeless children can find an end to aimless drifting, inadequate health care, gnawing hunger and a threadbare wardrobe. Their parents, 90 percent of them single mothers and 74 percent people of color, receive mental-health and employment counseling. The facility is a place of stability, healing and hope. And that’s all they wanted in the First Place.

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