PORT ANGELES — Fiddle-dee-dee-dough-re-mi for the food bank.
Five-year-old Stella Fradkin of Port Angeles plays her tiny violin these summer Saturdays at the Port Angeles Farmers Market to raise money to combat hunger.
With a breeze ruffling her blond hair and her parents standing close by, she bows her tiny violin as passers-by drop money into her instrument case.
She’ll donate the currency but keep the quarters, thank you. A girl’s got to get her gumballs somehow, but more about that in a bit.
Stella’s father, Steven, played duets with his daughter Saturday at the market in The Gateway transit center, Front and Lincoln streets.
Who played more proficiently was a matter of conjecture. Both he and Stella are beginning violin students of Suzuki-method instructor Deborah Morgan-Ellis of Port Angeles.
Weekdays, Dad works as a coastal ecologist for Olympic National Park. Kim Sager-Fradkin, Stella’s mom, is wildlife program manager for the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe. Come September, Stella will enter kindergarten at Franklin Elementary School.
Together, the family — which includes little brother Miles, 3 — used to feed a jar of coins that they emptied when it was full for the Port Angeles Food Bank.
That was until Stella, who’s studied violin for two years, saw buskers performing outside the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts last year.
She asked her parents what the musicians were doing and decided she’d like to try it herself.
Stella started scraping her strings at the market last February. Since then, she’s performed in public “only a few times,” her mother said, but raised $27.
“I honestly was shocked,” said Mom.
That didn’t count the $9 that was in her violin case when she packed it up Saturday after performing for about a half-hour.
As passers-by gazed fondly, Stella played “Turkey in the Straw” and “Country Garden,” then took a deep bow to their applause.
She said her favorite tune was “Go Tell Aunt Rhody,” so she played that, too. Between numbers, she retreated to the shelter of Dad’s legs.
Steven Fradkin said she’s learned about eight songs and adds to her repertoire each week.
“Thank you, Stella,” Jessica Hernandez, executive director of the food bank, posted to Facebook, “and your family for raising a socially conscious child with a heart of gold.”
Well, up to a point.
“She decided she wanted to keep her quarters,” Steven Fradkin said
“She doesn’t understand finances. She was disappointed in all her [dollar] bills because they weren’t quarters.”
“The quarters are important because they fit into the gumball machine” that Stella visits at Sergio’s Hacienda, 205 E. Eighth St., where the family dines out, said Sager-Fradkin.
Still, it was the 5-year-old’s decision to give most of her earnings to charity.
Stella is playing on the second violin her parents have rented for her from the Violin Shop, 922 S. C St., gradually working her way toward a full-size instrument.
She enjoys playing, her parents said, although she sometimes needs encouragement to practice.
“She wants to fiddle,” her mother said. “She likes the idea of being on stage.”
But let’s let Stella speak for herself.
What does she like best about performing? Besides the quarters, that is, and the gumballs.
Without hesitation, Stella answered:
“It’s music.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
