About Us

Our Mission

Bellevue LifeSpring aims to break the cycle of poverty for children and students in our community and provide them with the resources they need to reach stability.

Our Vision

We envision a Bellevue where the basic needs of all children are met so they can focus in the classroom, succeed in their education, and thrive.

What We Do

Breaktime-Mealtime: Provides grocery store food vouchers to replace school meals during school breaks and for emergency nutrition needs throughout the year—preventing hunger and providing nourishment.

Emergency Assistance: Supports families with rent assistance, move-in assistance, and financial aid—preventing eviction and homelessness, and providing stability.

Clothes-4-Kids: Provides the opportunity for students to select new back-to-school clothing from local merchants, so they feel confident and self-assured.

Holiday Giving Program: Provides seasonal gift and food support, making the holidays happy, healthy, and bright for Bellevue children and families.

In-person support – Bellevue Family Hubs: Bellevue LifeSpring operates two Bellevue Family Hub community resource centers in partnership with the Bellevue School District. Located at Sherwood Forest Elementary School and Highland Middle School—two of the district’s highest-need schools—the hubs provide a safe and compassionate space for families to get the assistance they need.

History of the organization

In 1911, a group of women living in Hunts Point formed the Overlake Service League in support of neighbors in need. Now known as Bellevue LifeSpring, our organization continues its tradition of providing children’s basic needs, allowing them to focus on their education and break the cycle of poverty.

When Overlake Service League began, the population in the Bellevue area was just over 150. In the early days, the organization delivered food baskets, goats for milk and seeds, and farm equipment to plant and harvest food. During the Great Depression and following years, Overlake Service League helped those out of work to find jobs. They delivered 50,000 half-pints of milk to school children and began a Well-Baby Clinic that provided immunizations and routine exams prior to the existence of a hospital on the Eastside.

In 1939, the first Overlake Service League Thrift Shop was opened on Main Street. In 1947, the Thrift Shop moved to Kemper Development property and, in 1981, made the final move to Bellevue Square Mall. In summer 2017, the thrift shop joined Bellevue LifeSpring administrative offices on the third floor of Bellevue Square and was named Thrift Culture for Bellevue LifeSpring’s culture of giving.

Overlake Service League had been supporting families in the Bellevue area for nearly 42 years by the time Bellevue was finally incorporated as a city in 1953. The League’s membership had grown to include 500 individuals in neighborhoods around the new city. By the end of the decade, it was serving more than 200 individuals per year. As Bellevue grew, so did the need. By 1985, the League was serving over 2,000 individuals per year.

In 2011, Overlake Service League celebrated 100 years of serving the Bellevue community with a Centennial Gala and changed the name of the organization to Bellevue LifeSpring to better reflect its commitment to serving families within the Bellevue School District.

Bellevue has grown, and Bellevue LifeSpring has grown with it, continuing the tradition of neighbors helping neighbors that began over a century ago.

Our Values and Commitments

We deliver compassionate solutions with respect, empathy, and humility. We are committed to delivering our services with genuine concern for the needs of others.

We are accountable to each other and those we serve. We are transparent, fiscally responsible, and committed to teamwork and service.

We are relevant, flexible, and responsive to the evolving needs in our Bellevue community.

Bellevue LifeSpring is committed to fostering a culture of equity, inclusion, and belonging. We recognize that systemic inequities, especially in education, housing, and economic opportunity, disproportionately affect marginalized communities. As we work to break the cycle of poverty for Bellevue children, we strive to remove barriers, confront bias, and ensure that all children have equitable access to the support and resources they need to thrive.