Petersburg’s domestic violence prevention nonprofit, Working Against Violence for Everyone, or WAVE, has a new executive director. Sharlay Mamoe stepped into the role in July after eight years as executive director of the Petersburg Children’s Center.
Mamoe came to Petersburg as a college student, and spent a decade working at the local cannery.
“After I had my daughter, she went to the children’s center for childcare,” she said. “And the children’s center was actually looking for a director.”
Mamoe wanted a job that allowed her to spend more time with her children, so she took the role.
That job was hands-on, doing everything from building relationships to securing federal and state funding.
“If the cook calls in sick, you’re cooking the meals for the children. It’s cleaning toilets whenever you don’t have a cleaner,” Mamoe said. “It does literally everything there.”
She said it was a hard decision to step back from the job.
“I literally went through all of the processes of grief,” she said. “After working there for eight years, it was really part of my identity.”
WAVE Board President Nicole McMurren said the skills Mamoe developed during her time at the Petersburg Children’s Center made her a great candidate for the job.
WAVE has come out of what McMurren called a “stormy” few years. She said outgoing executive director Rikki McKay stabilized the group during her year in the position.
“Rikki came and really added a lot of form to the organization,” McMurren said. “We got positions filled. We got a budget normalized. We got policies updated. We really got some very foundational things organized within the organization.”
In the last year, WAVE went from one full-time employee to five. They’ve also offered more public events. McMurren said WAVE has become more visible in Petersburg.
“I think that that’s reflected by the increase in numbers of the individuals that we’ve served has really skyrocketed. And in some ways that’s unfortunate, right?” she said. “But in other ways it’s really reflective, I think, of the image that WAVE is putting forward as a welcoming, accepting, helpful place.”
McKay announced earlier this year that she was stepping down from the role to pursue her master’s in social work. She said she’s excited about the organization that Mamoe will be stepping into.
“The work that we do is really hard, and it can be really sad, but the people who do that work are so full of passion for their jobs and joy and compassion for humanity that it is truly a beautiful place to work,” she said.
Mamoe said she’s ready to keep WAVE’s momentum going.
