Dr. Wayne Strom will be the keynote speaker at the 60th Anniversary Reception for Friends of Youth from 4-6 p.m. May 18 at the Harbor Club in Bellevue.

Strom was hired by Friends of Youth to serve as its Executive Director in 1962 and served until 1968.  He was 27 when he was hired and was interested in the position because he had always wanted to run a home for boys.

Shortly after he arrived he found that there wasn’t enough money to meet payroll so he became, by default, a fundraiser.  He estimates that he gave 26 FOY sermons in local churches and 100 talks each year to raise funds.  Primary support for the agency was through the United Good Neighbors (now the United Way of King County), the Church Council of Greater Seattle, and individuals and churches throughout the community.

Strom’s tenure the agency expanded from serving 12 foster youth to 22 youth, and a second home (McEachern) was built on the agency’s Griffin Home property.

Today Friends of Youth still operates a residential treatment facility for boys on the original campus in the Kennydale neighborhood of Renton. The agency has grown from the shoestring operation of Strom’s days to a multi-million dollar human service agency providing a comprehensive range of therapeutic services for youth and young adults at 20 program sites in East and North King County and South Snohomish County.