This is the third year in a row that I have been honored by different local organizations for grass roots organizing in my community, and nationally through Guitar Camp, and as a musician.

Here is the text of the citation:

The YWCA Northwest Women’s Hall of Fame Salutes
Flip Breskin

For more than three decades, Flip Breskin has 
been bringing people together through music and 
through grass roots communication. As she says, 
“something different happens when we listen to each other.”

Flip was raised in the fifties in Seattle, the 
product of the union of an orthodox Jewish father 
from New York City and a Protestant farm-raised 
mother from Idaho. Both parents were independent 
thinkers and opera lovers. Flip fondly remembers 
hearing classical music in her childhood home. 
She has a sister who plays classical French Horn 
and a brother who is an excellent guitarist.

Her life has also been profoundly influenced by 
her upbringing in a Seattle suburb where anti- 
Semitism was quite palpable.  She had one 
Protestant girlfriend who stuck with her as 
others chose to avoid her. Flip honors this early 
instance of “women backing women.”  She was also 
influenced by the big events of the day: The 
vision of civil rights, the Vietnam War – and the 
urban folk music revival.

Flip came to Bellingham in the early 1970’s to 
attend Western’s Fairhaven College to earn her 
degree in what she calls “listening and social 
change.” It was during this time that she began 
running the “Mama Sundays” coffeehouse on campus 
to “create a space where people could be 
heard.”  Flip had an epiphany after hearing the 
folk legend Elizabeth Cotton play in concert; she 
decided that she could “play like that too.” She 
and Elizabeth began a friendship that lasted many years.

In 1973, Flip co-founded the Puget Sound Guitar 
Workshop. It has developed into an 
internationally known venue that, during the 
summer months, employs over 60 teachers 
instructing and mentoring more than 400 students. 
She is very proud that this camp has inspired 
multiple spin-offs around the country.  She 
learned then, at the age of 23, that “You don’t 
have to wait until you are older to start 
things.” In the ‘80s, Flip started hosting and 
booking the concert series for Bellingham’s 
Homemade Music Society. She has convened, led, 
and recruited for their bi-monthly song circles 
for many years and hosts concerts that bring 
nationally recognized folk musicians to the Roeder Home.

In 1990, she started Flip’s Pix to highlight 
upcoming concerts. In her words, “If the concert 
was on the list that meant I wanted to be in the 
first row of the audience.”  The list was 
originally printed on paper the size of a dollar 
bill that Flip handed out as she went through her 
day. It is now sent out electronically to over 
500 folks. She also has a Flip’s Pix devoted to 
politics and another devoted to her Columbia 
Neighborhood Association (over 800 homes) that 
has worked on stopping a cell phone tower, a 
utility corridor – and a burglary ring. She 
established and now promotes the neighborhood 
Block Watch program.

Through words and music, Flip Breskin has created 
venues where people listen to one another, using 
the power of communication to build a strong 
community.  “I was not out to change the world,” 
she says of her multiple activities, “they just 
looked like interesting things to do at the time.”