Celebrate the Summer Gala-Style, Under the Orcas Sun

Orcas Center Gala this Saturday evening, "Under the Orcas Sun." Tickets still available.

Proceeds from Gala Fund-Raiser will help continue Arts Education Project

The Orcas Center “Gala” is its annual party, held under mild summer skies outdoors, to celebrate Center patrons and to raise funds for Center programs. Through the years, the “Gala” has entertained with Country barbecue parties and “Asleep at the Wheel,” Brazilian Carnaval – in keeping with the country of origin of the featured artist, Airto Moreira, Cajun-Creole culture with “Gumbo Gala”and “Buckwheat Zydeco,” and last year’s Beatle-themed event, “Imagine” with Abbey Road.

Also last year, like many island institutions, Orcas Center was feeling the heat of the economic downturn. Then former Executive Director Candy Ver Brugghen suggested an auction and then “rolled up her sleeves” and spearheaded the event whose surprising success, “came at a very good time in a very tough year,” says Barbara Courtney, current Executive Director at the Center.

Following the auction for the 12 dinner parties, patrons raised their bidding paddles to support programs such as the Arts Education Project and the Center’s fall production of “Great Expectations.” Courtney said her own expectations were that about $5,000 may be raised; so she was thunderstruck that the Center realized $20,000 in program support. An anonymous donor offered to match any $500 gift, and wound up matching over 16 gifts for $8,500.

This year, the Center’s Gala will take a slower, more relaxed summer pace – although there will be a few performance surprises too! Under the Orcas sun, guests will enjoy dinner provided by Christina Orchid and Red Rabbit Farm, and desserts concocted by Anna Harlow-Truscott, pastry chef at Allium Restaurant in Eastsound. “It’s the only time we throw a big tent up and treat our patrons to a wonderful meal – it’s a special evening for us,” says Courtney.

At the same time, the auction catalog has expanded to include cooking classes, personal training sessions, jewelry, trip packages to Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Seattle and Double Island, as well as a catered dinner in your own home and dinners at Ship Bay, Allium and Quilted Pig restaurants.

Auction funds raised through the efforts of Laura Michalek, professional auctioneer, will go towards the Center’s fall programs, operations (“the least glamorous but the most fundamental aspect of our budget,” says Courtney) and the continuation of the Arts Education Project.

This project is a four-year commitment of the Center’s 2006 Strategic Plan, responding to community requests to “create and sustain a high-quality arts education program for K-12 students.”  The Arts Education Project provides “comprehensive, sequential, developmental, curriculum-based instruction in the four arts areas: dance, music, theater and visual arts,” says Courtney.

The Project began with dance in  2007, when Susan Babcock’s “talent and teaching made the splash for this program,” said Courtney. Jean Henigson has joined Babcock to provide weekly instruction to Orcas Elementary students. Teacher Anne Ford McGrath said after the second day of dance class in her 2^nd-grade classroom, “This class is just what our primary kiddos need because it reaches so many areas of development and learning! I truly believe we’ll see results academically and socially, as well as physically!”

In its second and third years, the Project has expanded to support music and theater curriculum, and last year, the Orcas Center purchased a new arts education curriculum that was tested in three grades, with the assistance of retired art teacher Mary Callahan. She says, “It’s been a successful year and the teachers myself are so appreciative to Orcas Center; I don’t think people realize how much they have done.

“One of the best parts has been going to Orcas Center to see several of the shows; the prints from the National Gallery of the Arts and David Densmore’s Mask Show, especially. I wish David had been there when the kids analyzed the masks, and their own work – they’re so fresh and open. It’s amazing what Orcas Center has done with this grant,” says Callahan.

However, the Washington State Arts Commission has had to cut 35 per cent of the grant it awarded to Orcas Center for the Arts Education Project. The Gala Committee is hopeful that the auction will support the continuation and maintenance of this program.

Cost for the Saturday gala is $150 per person, and includes entertainment following the dinner and auction by the Coats, a lively group of a cappella performers who started out “busking” at the Pike Place Market and have gone on to perform for presidential guests at the White House.

The Gala Auction Planning Committee was comprised of Kathy Youngren, Velma Doty, Nanae Fralick, April Duke and Christina Orchid, led by Courtney. Auction procurement was handled by Ed Zimmerman, Christina Orchid, Art Lange, Fred Munder, Kathy Youngren, and Courtney.

To order tickets for “Under the Orcas Sun,” call 360-376-2282, or go to the newly-revised website, www.orcascenter.org, where you can hear and see audio and video clips of artists performing at the Center.