PORT ANGELES — The Festival of Trees Gala on Friday sold out for the first time in the festival’s 21-year history and raised a record amount of money for the Olympic Medical Center Foundation and the Port Angeles Exchange Club.
Thirty-seven decorated trees were auctioned off during the buffet dinner and dance attended by about 450 people — and those trees plus 14 others can be viewed today at the Vern Burton Community Center, 308 E. Fourth St.
The gala brought in $109,000, surpassing the former record of the event, achieved in 2007 when the gala auction generated $107,000.
“We were very, very pleasantly surprised,” said Bruce Skinner, executive director of the Olympic Medical Center Foundation.
“With the economy being what it is, our former record was in 2007,” he said.
“Then in 2008, the amount of revenue that it raised took a dive and stayed at that level for three years,” reaching a low of $65,000 in 2009.
A total of 410 people purchased tickets to the Friday night gala, Skinner said, while about 40 of the volunteer designers of the lavishly decorated trees also attended.
Highest bid
The highest bid for a tree at the festival, which had the theme of “Home for the Holidays,” went to “Hillbilly Holiday,” sponsored by Westport Shipyard Inc.
The tree and its premiums — which included a handmade wooden kayak — went for $7,500.
That tree, the others auctioned off Friday night, some 80 wreaths and 14 trees offered in raffles and a silent auction that continue today are on view today at the Vern Burton Community Center.
During Family Days, which began Saturday and continues today, visitors can bid on four raffle trees as well as the 4-foot trees — 10 in all — that are part of the silent auction.
Tickets at the door for Family Days, scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., are $5, with children younger than 8 admitted free.
Musical entertainment also will be offered, along with photos with Santa and such activities as puppet shows, games and crafts.
The total amount raised by the three-day festival won’t be known until it’s all over, Skinner pointed out.
Proceeds benefit both the hospital foundation, which funds equipment and patient services, and the Port Angeles Exchange Club, whose beneficiary this year is Healthy Families of Clallam County.
‘Fund the Need’
During a special “Fund the Need” break during Friday’s auction, which honored four people who had died during the previous year, $17,000 was raised.
The money will go to the Capt. Joseph W. Shultz Foundation and to fund equipment for the hospital’s obstetrics department, Skinner said. Exact amounts for each project have not been determined.
Joseph Schultz, the son of Betsy Reed Schultz of Port Angeles and a decorated Green Beret, was killed in Afghanistan in May.
Betsy Schultz, who served as the festival’s creative director, is planning to turn her former Port Angeles bed and breakfast, The Tudor Inn, into the Capt. Joseph House to serve as a getaway for families of fallen soldiers.
Others honored during the special auction were Richard Playter, who bought many festival trees during his lifetime; longtime volunteer Bobbi Breithaupt; and Vivian Gellor, the mother of Festival of Trees co-chairman Bill Gellor, who had a tree, “Go Huskies,” decorated in her name.
Sequim Health and Rehabilitation was the presenting sponsor of the festival.
