Meet the guest speaker:  

Rebecca Vinson

Rebecca (Becky) Vinson grew up in North Carolina.  As a teenager Becky found herself homeless.  Thanks to a friend who allowed her to use his guest pass to the YMCA, she was able to shower each day and attend the final years of high school.  After graduating from high school Becky joined the US Navy as a way to escape her homelessness.  Becky served her country for 5 years, aboard three different ships while earning college tuition assistance.  After her honorable discharge, Becky attended nursing school using the GI Bill, where she found her passion for serving others.  While working, attending college, and raising a young daughter as a single mother, Becky met a young boy whose parents had abandoned him at a group home where he was beaten up daily by bigger boys.  Fearing for this young man’s safety and knowing he was at risk for becoming a homeless teen if he ran away, Becky took the young man into her own home.  Becky raised that young boy as her own, later legally adopting him.  Today that young man is not only making Becky proud, but his new hometown of Seattle proud as well.  That young man is Jimmy Graham, tight end for the Seattle Seahawks.   Becky continues her service to others as a Nurse Practitioner with the VA providing primary healthcare to veterans in our local community.  

Meet the Pay It Forward Honoree: 

Doug Johnson 

Doug and his wife came to Federal Way in 1976 as part of the Air Force test team for the E-3A AWACS and decided to stay in the area after leaving the service in 1979. In the nearly 40 years since that initial move, Doug has been involved in many community organizations including the parents club at St Vincent de Paul School, soccer coach, Federal Way Symphony board member, member of St Vincent de Paul and St Theresa's Catholic Churches, an employee of the Multi-Service Center and later a volunteer, and the Federal Way Community Caregiving Network. 

Doug has been active with the Federal Way Community Caregiving Network since 1994. The Caregiving Network provides basic needs support (food, shelter, clothing, bus tickets) for people in need in Federal Way and NE Tacoma. In 2007, he came to see the critical importance of housing in helping families and communities grow and decided to leave the for-profit world where he worked as a project manager and entered the nonprofit world of human services, working for the Multi-Service Center as a case manager for men in recovery. He found: It isn't that different!!!

In December 2016 Doug left the Board of the Caregiving Network but continues to volunteer in the Federal Way Community because he and his wife Diane believe you must be active in the community in which you live.