Thank you for helping your fellow WSNA members
A huge thank you to all those who have supported our members in Spokane who have been affected by the wildfires. Since the Old Trails, Fairview, and Autumn Lane fires broke out, over 10,000 acres of land have been burned, and 883 homes have been lost.
Thanks to the generous support of 84 individual donors, and donations from the WSNA Board of Directors, WSNA Labor Executive Committee, Nurses Shift Change, the Florida Nurses Association, ML Hall Living Trust, the Inland Empire Nurses Association, our national union partner, AFT, and local units from St. Joesph Bellingham, Tacoma General, and the University of Washington, the Washington State Nurses Foundation Nurses Emergency Assistance Grant Fund has issued nearly 100 grants to members who lost their homes or were forced to evacuate.
As climate and other disasters become more frequent, the WSNF Board of Trustees has decided to keep the Emergency Assistance Grant program open year-round to be ready to respond quickly to WSNA members in need.
About the Nurses Emergency Assistance Grant
The Nurses Emergency Assistance Grant was created in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, drawing on the existing infrastructure of the Etta B. Cummings fund. The Etta B Cummings fund was originally created to assist the “sick and worn out nurses of Washington state.”
During the Covid-19 pandemic, two realities emerged: 1) WSNA members found themselves facing economic hardship due to low census, furlough, increased childcare costs, medical expenses, Covid-19 isolation/quarantine, and other adversity brought on by the pandemic, and 2) businesses and individuals wanted to support Washington nurses on the front lines.
The fund served as a way to collect donations and provide $500 non-repayable grants to WSNA members in good standing who were in need of assistance. Over the course of two years, $99,000 was awarded to members in need—helping to pay rent, childcare, groceries, medical bills, and more.
When the Spokane Complex Fires began to devastate the city of Spokane and the surrounding communities, the Nurses Emergency Assistance Grant was reactivated to accept donations to once again assist WSNA members in need. Thanks to generous donations from the WSNA Board of Directors, Labor Executive Council, local unit councils, and individuals, funds were available to provide immediate assistance to those required to evacuate their homes and who lost their homes in the fires. The WSNF Board of Trustees also committed to keeping the Nurses Emergency Assistance Grant funded so that WSNA can quickly respond to future disasters affecting members.
Who was Etta B. Cummings?
Etta B. Cummings was a charter member of the Pierce County Nurses Association (formed in 1905) and elected the first Treasurer of the newly formed Washington State Graduate Nurses Association in 1908 (later renamed WSNA in 1940). Originally from the East Coast, she graduated from the very prestigious Bellevue Hospital Training School in New York City in 1876. This training school was the first in the United States to be modeled after Florence Nightengale’s nursing school at St. Thomas Hospital in London.
Post graduation, Cummings was the first nurse in the United States to take up private duty nursing, as most graduates from Bellevue Hospital Training School took executive positions. As a founder of WSNA, she had experience in both administration and direct care nursing. Her choice to take a markedly different path in nursing than her colleagues led her to move to Washington in 1889, also the year Washington became a state.
Not much is known about Etta B. Cummings personal life, except that she willed her house to WSNA upon her death to be used for the “sick and worn out nurses of Washington state.” She was posthumously inducted into the Washington State Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 2008, and the Washington State Nurses Foundation continues to raise funds to assist nurses in need in her honor.