SEQUIM — If a fundraiser for disabled veterans at the Sequim Elks Club this Fourth of July is a success, the idea could be picked up by Elks Clubs throughout the country.
And that’s organizer Bill Ellis’ fondest hope.
“Can you imagine if this went national next year, all the help the veterans are going to get?” Ellis asked.
“That’s my dream.”
Americans Helping Our Disabled Veterans and Their Families is an all-day extravaganza of food and music at the Sequim Elks Lodge at 143 Port Williams Road, which is hosting and sponsoring Monday’s event.
Admission is free. Donations will be solicited for disabled veterans.
All donations will be given to the Disabled American Veterans Chapter 9, based in Port Angeles, which serves Clallam and Jefferson counties.
“We’re giving the DAV the money under one condition: that 100 percent goes to veterans and their families, and they agreed they’d have their books open,” Ellis said.
“We’re not taking anything out for overhead whatsoever.”
The celebration is all-volunteer. Ellis, who conceived of the fundraiser for disabled veterans, has bought a banner and some other items. Entertainers are all donating their time and skills. The Elks Club is providing the food and other amenities.
“The Elks are doing all this,” said Ellis, who recently became a member of the club.
“It is really a good, good club to belong to,” he said.
The fundraiser will include music and dancing, breakfast from 8:30 a.m. to noon, hot dogs in the afternoon, a flag-raising at 11:45 a.m. and U.S. flags for the first 200 youths to arrive, Ellis said.
Booths providing information and outreach for veterans will be manned at the event.
All veterans can receive a free raffle ticket for various gift cards to local Sequim and Port Angeles businesses and restaurants.
The entertainment lineup is:
■ Noon — Straight Wheelers (square dance).
■ 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. — Buck Ellard (country music).
■ 2:15 p.m. to 3 p.m. — Na Hula O Wahine ‘Ilikea Hula (Hawaiian dance).
■ 3:15 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. — Round Trip (rock).
■ 5 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. — Children of the Ravens (tribal dancing).
■ 5:45 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. — Martial arts demonstrations.
■ 6:15 p.m. to 8 p.m. — Cat’s Meow (big band).
Ellis, an 83-year-old Korean War veteran who served four combat tours in the Navy and was not wounded, said he spearheaded the event because he feels more needs to be done to help disabled veterans and their families.
“Our disabled veterans need us to show them we really care,” Ellis said.
Go national
He said he has contacted the Elks Club national headquarters in Chicago and was told that “if this works, they’ll go nationwide next year.”
He has high hopes that will happen, he said Wednesday, because of the response he has received even before the event happens.
“People have already been sending in checks,” he said, adding that $400 has been received “that I know of.”
“Everybody I tell this to says, ‘We want to go to that and bring my kids and my grandkids.’
“This thing is really going to be a big deal.
“It’s going to be a barn-burner.”
Checks are to be made out to the Sequim Elks Club, which will donate all proceeds to the DAV, Ellis said.
For more information, contact the Sequim Elks Lodge at 360-683-2763.
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Executive Editor Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3530 or at lleach@peninsuladailynews.com.
Sequim Gazette Editor Michael Dashiell contributed to this report. The Olympic Peninsula News Group is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum.
