As a coffee sign disappears from the highway, donations drop

Some local charities are going to be coming up short in Snohomish County this year. It’s not that the public has lost interest in their cause, it’s because of a small sign that the state recently took down.

Ten small letters, lit up on the side of the road: “Free Coffee.”

A welcome sight to weary drivers approaching the Smokey Point rest area on I-5, but the Washington State Department of Transportation recently removed the sign.

It wasn’t just drivers that counted on that sign. The charities that offer the coffee and other refreshments for a small donation did, too.

“There are many fewer people,” volunteer Barbara Haldi said. “A lot of the people that pulled in were not aware that we had coffee because there was no free coffee sign out there anymore.”

Haldi is with
B.R. chapter of P.E.O., a women’s charity that raises money for education. This was her organization’s one fundraising weekend, manning the coffee kiosk at the rest area.

“Frequently, we’ve made between $1,700 and $2,000 on the weekend, and we’re nowhere near that,” she said. “That will mean fewer scholarships for us to give. It’s point-blank. Money in, money out. That directly affects our recipients.”

The free coffee sign at Smokey Point was the only lighted sign in the state. The other signs had to be manually opened on the side of the freeway. The WSDOT’s Steve Holloway said they decided a few years ago to get rid of the signs for safety.

“What made the most sense to us, from a statewide consistency standpoint and safety aspect, was to remove the signs entirely, to take the volunteer effort and the volunteer groups out of harm’s way,” said Holloway.

The state decided to leave the Smokey Point sign alone until it broke, which it recently did. The sign has now been removed. Holloway said no other charities around the state have complained that their donations are down since the signs started being removed in 2012.

“Most people that are traveling don’t pull into a rest area, that we’re aware of, to get a cup of free coffee,” he said.

Truckers and drivers might disagree on that one.

“If the sign’s not on, I usually don’t stop at all,” one truck driver said. “The sign, for me, was always very helpful.”

The state has been letting charities provide coffee at rest areas for several decades. It did consider using lighted signs at all of them, but decided it was too expensive.

The state said this sign cost about $6,000.