PORT ANGELES – Since the late 1990’s, the Soroptimist International of Port Angeles Noon Club has had $70,000 tucked away in a special account, just waiting for the right cause or project that would best put it to use. The wait is over.
The money sits in the Estuary Fund, left over from the major fund-raising effort, sparked by members of the Noon Club in 1992 but eventually mobilizing an entire community, and led to what is now Valley Creek Estuary Park on Marine Drive downtown.
The Club has struggled all these years to find a way to use the money that fits in with the spirit in which it was donated. Then the Field Arts and Events Hall broke ground, right next door to the park, in the Fall of 2019.
Soroptimist Noon Club President Lena Washke says that opened up an opportunity that no one saw coming.
“One of the reasons why we were holding that money was for a potential development of a restroom facility at the Estuary site. And so when I was approached by our member Pili Meyer about the opportunity to support the Field Arts and Events Hall, we reviewed what naming opportunities were available. One of the naming opportunities available is a seventy-thousand-dollar donation for the women’s restroom, and that tied in so well with this money that we had remaining from all that fundraising efforts that we were doing at the time. I was like, wow, it just seems like it was meant to be.”
Field Hall Director of Development Jessica Hernandez believes the adjacency of the park, the performing arts center and the waterfront trail will create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
“And what a beautiful opportunity as well, to be able to share. Let’s say somebody’s visiting off of the ferry and they come and walk over to the Performing Arts Center and maybe they catch a show or something, but they’re going to be enjoying that trail and it will naturally take them to the estuary, or vice versa. If someone’s there visiting the estuary and the Friendship Bridge, it’s going to bring that collaboration. It’s going to elevate it for the next hundred years. I mean, as long as the building is there, as long as the estuary and that work is there, it’s…we’re going to be able to elevate one another’s projects for a long time. And that’s really special.”
An initial endowment of $9 million by Port Angeles resident Donna Morris spurred the effort to build a performing arts center downtown. The center’s namesake, Dorothy Field, purchased the waterfront property and donated it, along with considerable funding, to the project, which is expected to open in 2021.
(Jessica Hernandez photo: Noon Club Soroptimist President Lena Washke and members present Field Hall Executive Director Chris Fidler with a check for $70K.)