Imagine life on Orcas without the arts, without affordable music, theater and dance, without attractive spaces to showcase the work of local painters and printmakers, without an attractive and centrally located venue for lectures on important contemporary issues. Such a life would be much poorer – intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, socially, and economically.

Orcas Center enriches the community in many ways. It offers opportunities to learn and grow, nourish our talents, and simply have fun. In both its programming at the center itself, and in the dance and theatre education programs it sponsors in the Orcas schools, the center enables our children to explore their own gifts and experience what the world has to offer. The center is a source of civic pride, and one reason that Orcas has become such an attractive destination for visitors and full-time residents. We are a gathering place for shared experience and common purpose serving a population that is diverse in its tastes and interests.

Three years ago, when we solicited community views on our mission, the message came back loud and clear: Orcas Center should offer “something for everyone.” We have taken that message to heart and crafted programming that includes families, seniors, and young adults; lovers of classical music, rock, jazz and roots; devotees of theater and dance; and the local and regional artists who contribute so richly to the quality of life on Orcas.

This is a rewarding mission but one that requires sustained financial support, support that is more important than ever this year.

The year 2009 will be the most challenging since Orcas Center’s founding. It is a year in which we’ve tightened our belts, including staffing cuts, as far as is possible without – so far – having to cut back on our ability to meet our commitment to the community.

The key fact involved in keeping the center going, and its ticket prices affordable, is cold, hard and simple: box office revenues cover only about 20 percent of the monies needed to provide the performances, the Arts Education program in the schools, and the 300 plus meetings and events that bring nearly 6000 people through the center’s door each year.

The center can only meet the remaining four-fifths of its operating costs through the support of the community we serve.

The center urgently needs your support now. If you haven’t yet joined or renewed your membership, please do so at the box office, by phone to 376-1465, ext 1, or on the web at www.orcascenter.org/membershipform.htm. Check out the center site for the schedule of upcoming events and sign up as an event sponsor. Patronize the center’s business sponsors. Encourage your friends to do the same.

In this tough year, your generous help is vitally important so that the center can continue to be a bright spot of respite from the cloudy days for all of us on Orcas.

Joe Massey is President of the Orcas Center Board of Trustees.