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We believe that art inspires, and that inspiration builds community.
PRESS RELEASE: EVENT 9 - 2016
The Event 2016 will be performed at the Chewelah Civic Center at 7 p.m on Saturday, February 27. At this event, the PACA Board of Directors will present the annual PACA Awards honoring the artists who have distinguished excellence in the artistic culture of Chewelah over the past year. This year’s event will feature a smaller and shorter format from past events, in order to take all of the patrons on a tour of the recently purchased building that will become the Chewelah Center for the Arts. The Event 9 is a free event. Donations, are accepted. At the new venue, the previous City Shop in the Old Armory Building, guests will be treated with hot chocolate and the famous PACA Corn, to warm up from the parade led by PACA Board Member Joe Trudeau and his bagpipes.
The Performing and Cultural Arts (PACA) Board of Directors are launching a bricks and mortar capital fund drive to raise money to build the Chewelah Center for the Arts. The capital fund drive, entitled “Help Us Build the Dream” will seek to raise $300,000 in tax deductible (501c3) donations or pledges. The drive is centered in Chewelah but will encompass the Tri-County Area of Stevens, Pend Oreille and Ferry Counties from Cusick in the east to Republic in the West, North from the Canadian Border and south to Spokane. Donations of all sizes and amounts will be sought by the volunteer members and staff of PACA to retrofit the old armory building to use as an arts center, including “in kind” donations of materials, equipment and labor. The resources from the fund drive will be used to begin construction on a south side addition to house the new ADA bathrooms, lobby/gallery space, concession stand, box office and main entrance to the theatre. Design and budget planning are being completed by the committees of the board and ground breaking of this portion of Phase One of the project are anticipated, by agreement with the City of Chewelah, in the spring of this year. The PACA board has prioritized the phasing of the renovation of the building in the following way: south addition, theatre, backstage production support and north addition for storage.
Performance contracts are being negotiated for producers who will present their art in the new center including, but not limited to: The Chewelah Arts Guild, Community Celebrations, Park Avenue Players, Stagetime Theatre School, Chewelah School District’s Music, Theatre, Dance and Art programs, Ann Marie Benedicts Northern Ballet and Performing Arts Company, the Aaron Gabrial Huff Cultural Arts Center, KCHW Radio and many other professional and amateur performance groups. In addition, the Chewelah Center for the Arts will be available, on a performance contract basis, as a site for many other events including concerts, meetings, conferences, trade shows and historical displays and conferences.
Tourism and the local economic impact of dollars from outside of the Stevens County business community are a major influence of all decisions regarding the Chewelah Center for the Arts. The PACA Board sees the creation of a vital, intimate performance space, that can nimbly transform itself to the task at hand, providing an attractive and well equipped venue for patrons of the arts. The Center will not have a coffee bar, restaurant or full service bar, however, the offerings can be provided by contract with local vendors who already provide those services. The Center will charge for use of the facility by all producing groups and contracts and will be negotiated accordingly. It will also be available for “benefit performances” where the ticket prices will be adjusted to assist other public service organizations to buy the house, at a discount, and sell the tickets for a revenue producing opportunity to support and benefit many local, and needy, ogranizations.
It has long been the dream of many Chewelah residents to have a well-equipped and flexible facility for the arts. Those who donate to the “Help Us Build the Dream” capital fund drive will be forever immortalized in the lobby of the new facility with a plaque that thanks them for their support. The plaque, at this point in time, is a small number of names who have donated to the project over the past eight years ($53,000). We hope, by the time we open in April of 2017, that the plaque will contain the names of many more who cared enough to donate and help provide a lasting effect on the future financial and cultural arts history of our city, county and region. In short, Chewelah Center for the Arts means business and financial return for our community. It also means an investment in the future of the education of our people in performance, artistic expertise and arts and culture education for all of our citizens.
The PACA Board has donated hundreds of hours of volunteer effort to bring the dream to fruition. They have all donated their own money. They will be knocking on the doors of many people in the next months asking for help. Many of our citizens will never paint, draw, act, sing, play a musical instrument, build a sculpture, dance in a ballet or create an original work of art. All of them will have children, grand children and great grandchildren or family members that will want to do so. Make Chewelah stronger. Give to the “Help Us Build the Dream” Capital Project Fund. All of us, who have already given, deeply appreciate it!. The PACA Board has launched a new Facebook Page and a website. Search for both at: chewelahcenterforthearts.com.