Editor,

I want to express my most sincere appreciation for the numerous volunteers who made the 2015 Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival a success. The Coupeville Festival Association has promoted and hosted the annual Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival for 51 years. The CFA is a non-profit, all- volunteer organization consisting of 23 standing committees and 250 plus volunteers. There is no paid staff. All non-operational proceeds go into the Coupeville area in the form of project grants and scholarships. In December 2014, those annual grants and scholarships totaled $815,000.

The CFA has partner agreements with various Coupeville organizations to help run some areas of the festival.

Those partners include: Pacific Northwest Art School, which hosts the juried art gallery in the recreation hall; Coupeville Chamber of Commerce, which operates the Beer and Wine Garden in front of the museum; the Coupeville Boys and Girls Club, which provides volunteers to run two parking lots; Coupeville School’s History Day students and Wilbur Purdue manage trash and recycle pick-up; the Coupeville Lions Club helps set up Friday and Saturday morning, then tear down and load out on Sunday evening; The U.S. Navy provides volunteers who help in many areas of the festival throughout festival weekend.

This festival would not be possible without the continued support of individuals and sponsors. Special thanks and appreciation go to: the town of Coupeville and its employees; Mark Mouw and tellers from People’s Bank (sponsor) for Sunday evening check-out; Eric Mitten, Windemere Real Estate (sponsor); Walt Blackford at Puget Sound Energy (sponsor); Doug Kroon at Knead and Feed (sponsor); Nathan Corey at Corey Oil; John Tharp at Sea-Tac Shuttle for the free shuttle busses between the parking lots; Derek Franzen from Central Electric who keeps electricity running in the food court; Carol Moliter, Big Rock Designs, manages all production and ads; Dawn Hesselgrave, Branch Business Services, coordinates multiple committees’ printing needs.

The Coupeville Festival is truly a community event. In some cases, there are third generation volunteers who come “home” to Coupeville to help at the festival. Other volunteers come from Island County communities, the mainland and even as far away as Texas.

I personally want to thank all of the committee chairs and their dedicated volunteer teams for their countless hours of work throughout the year that make this great event happen. If I have not mentioned some person or organization, let me apologize now for the oversight.

Mike Dessert

President

Coupeville Festival

Association