Visiting Angels

General information

Meet Fred and Debbie Bengen:

Born and raised in Whatcom County, Fred and Debbie Bengen graduated from Mount Baker High School. They raised their two children, Chad and Kit, in Whatcom County until 1981 when Fred attending Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Oregon, beginning a 20 year career in ministry.

After six years in Vancouver, Washington, they moved back to Whatcom County. Fred became the pastor of Marietta Community Church in 1991. In the years that followed, Debbie’s heart for outreach included ministries such as Mom’s Support Group and providing therapeutic foster care for high need teenagers.

In January of 2001, recognizing the community had a growing need for in-home senior care, Debbie opened Visiting Angels as an agency initially serving Whatcom, Skagit, San Juan and Island Counties. With a strong team of caregivers committed to the same values, Visiting Angels was embraced by the community and experienced phenomenal growth.

It soon became clear that a second office location was needed to better serve Skagit and Island Counties, so, in 2002, the Mount Vernon office was established. Then, in January of 2004, Visiting Angels opened an office in Everett to serve Snohomish County. Later that same year, Visiting Angels’ Bellingham office moved out of Fred and Debbie’s basement and into its own building, the Marietta Church that Fred was once that pastor of.

Today, Visiting Angels continues to be a family business. Chad, their son, joined the team in 2002 to help manage the company’s exceptional growth and in 2016 their daughter, Kit, also joined the Visiting Angels team.