PORT ANGELES — Today is the final day to purchase chances to win desserts, art and cash — all prizes to be given away during the Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts Winter Benefit this Saturday night.
About those desserts: They include a homemade tart paired with a 1977 port wine; an Irish whiskey pie and a chocolate pie by cookbook author Kate McDermott, aka Port Angeles’ pie guru.
The annual fundraiser, which will be livestreamed at 7 p.m. Saturday from the Naval Elks Lodge in downtown Port Angeles, also features a 50/50 split raffle, live music by Black Diamond Junction and comedy by PA Panto, promised Kyle LeMaire, executive director of the Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts (JFFA).
Admission to the Winter Benefit is free while raffle tickets are available through today at Port Book and News, 104 E. First St.; Fogtown Coffee Bar, 1105-B E. Front St.; and the JFFA office, 101 W. Front St., all in Port Angeles.
For information and to RSVP to the event, visit www.jffa.org.
Raffle tickets, at $5 each or $20 for five, give purchasers chances to win 50 percent of the pot, LeMaire noted. During Saturday’s benefit, hosted by Tim Tucker, drawings also will be held for the desserts and for a 16-by-20-inch print of photographer Robert Chism’s image of the Port Angeles Wharf. Imagine It Framed of Port Angeles has provided the framing.
The Winter Benefit, LeMaire added, also previews JFFA’s plans for 2022.
“First and foremost, this event allows us to connect,” he said, and introduce to the nearly three-decade-old foundation’s new programs and goals.
“We’re moving forward with everything,” said LeMaire, who took the foundation’s helm in August, succeeding Kayla Oakes.
He’s booking acts for the annual Juan de Fuca Festival, May 27-29 at Port Angeles’ Vern Burton Community Center, Chamber Stage and Naval Elks Lodge ballroom. The fest will include about 26 acts, the street fair, art and music workshops, a beer garden and buskers, LeMaire said.
“Our plan is to do it all in-person,” he added.
In the next three months, JFFA has three concerts planned in Port Angeles: Blues Is a Woman on Feb. 26, electric violinist Geoffrey Castle’s St. Patrick’s revelry on March 11 and Mariachi Reyna from Los Angeles on April 27. Information is found under Season Concerts at JFFA.org.
In the Winter Benefit this Saturday, the foundation will celebrate local music and talent. Black Diamond Junction will offer its mix of classic rock’n’roll, pop and country, from the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman” to Blondie’s “Call Me” to Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.”
PA Panto will perform a short play featuring Jennifer Horton, Bailey Loveless and Shannon Cosgrove: As a fictional musical group, “we are auditioning for the Tiny Desk Concert, in spite of having arrived at the wrong location,” Cosgrove said.
She’s co-director of PA Panto as well as JFFA’s new educational artist in residence, working this year on Juan de Fuca Festival workshops and the summer youth camp.
LeMaire, for his part, hopes Saturday’s festivities will inspire viewers to join JFFA as members, sponsors and concert-goers.
“We’re really excited about what this next year holds,” he said.
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
