House party!
After Lincoln City’s popular Festival of Trees was chopped for the second year in a row, construction began on a replacement that, though a little less lavish, retains the basic building blocks that make this fund-raiser a treasured annual tradition.
Celebrate the season and help raise needed funds for Angels Anonymous at the Lincoln City Cultural Center this Friday, Dec. 3.
Don your favorite cocktail attire and enjoy dinner, dancing, drinks and raffles at the Lincoln City Chamber of Commerce Holiday Gala. And don’t forget to place your bids for the most popular part of the event, the auctions, which have gone from towering to tiny-and-tasty.
Instead of the trees, volunteers will be constructing edible creations of all kinds, which will be on display until the gala, so you can drop by the cultural center and bid even if you are not attending the evening event.
“We used to have 20 to 25 heavily decorated trees,” Angels Anonymous board member Roger Robertson said. “The girl scouts used to decorate a tree full of cookie boxes. Now they and other organizations and individuals are going to decorate gingerbread houses.”
Girl Scout leader Leanne Gabler and her teenage daughter Anna are helping the younger troop members with their contribution to the auction.
Anna’s job?
“I’m just going around making sure the candy goes on the houses,” she said, “not into their mouths.”
The scouts’ auction item is a grand venture, giving all the girls a chance to contribute.
“The girls are making a whole village with seven houses in it,” Gabler said. “One of our leaders is also putting together a gingerbread train that will go through the village.”
As cute as all that sounds, Gabler buried the lead:
“Part of the prize will be a $200 gift certificate for Girl Scout cookies,” she said. “It can be used during the whole cookie season, which usually kicks off in January and lasts a few months.”
Adding this kind of bling not only helps drive the auction prices up to help increase fundraising but also the fun for the bidders.
"We are incredibly thankful that the Lincoln City Cultural Center and Lakeview Senior Living have stepped up and are doing this benefit that will doubtless be a good time, but will also benefit the Angels greatly,” Robertson said. “We’re still disappointed that we’re not doing the full Angels Ball and Festival of Trees at the Chinook Winds Casino, but there is a lot of planning that goes into that early on, and we were being overly careful in case the virus surges again,”
Cancelling the ball has left the Angels board with another opportunity to support community members during the holiday season.
“We have a huge amount of Christmas decorations that we’ve collected over the years,” Robertson said. “We’ll be donating a lot of them to the Echo Mountain Fire victims.”
Operating as a non-profit, Angels Anonymous provides immediate and basic services to those in need in the greater Lincoln City area, and helps them find solutions for long-term problems.
The board of directors is comprised of local citizens volunteering their time and energy, whose goal is to make a positive impact within the community.
“The angels have given over $120,000 to help victims of the Echo Mountain Fire,” said Joy Wilson of Lakeview, who was one of the people who lost her home, as well as her husband's home-based business, in the fire. “They were there for us and for a lot of our staff who were also victims of the fire. It never ceases to amaze me how much our community supports each other but that’s Lincoln City life; doing what you can to help your neighbors.”
The Holiday Gala will be held from 6 to 9 pm at the Lincoln City Cultural Center, located at 540 NE Hwy. 101. The center is open for gingerbread viewing from 10 am to 4 pm Thursday and Friday. Tickets are $40 per person. Proof of COVID vaccination required.
For more information and to purchase tickets, call 541-994-3070.