Festival will support VFW emergency fund
Mary Anne Edwards felt helpless.
Her heart broke as she watched television coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation the storm wrought on the Gulf Coast.
The damage was so extensive and the need for aid so great, she thought, there must be something she could do.
Added to the loss was the knowledge of the destruction within her own community.
Edwards manages the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 1435. Dozens of VFW posts were lost throughout the Gulf region.
“We don’t know yet if we lost any more in Hurricane Rita yet or not,” she explained. “After Hurricane Katrina, we were at 45 VFW Posts lost.
“Those posts are very important to those communities. VFW actually got started in that part of the country after the Civil War.”
Edwards and her Post decided to raise money for their fellow Posts through a music festival and spaghetti feed Sunday. A cadre of local musicians volunteered their time, and area suppliers donated food.
Music begins at 1 p.m. The pasta hits the plates at 2:30. Tickets for the concert are $5, as are tickets for the spaghetti feed – $10 for both.
“We have a pretty good lineup,” Edwards said. “Sissy Starr will play. The Rhythm Chiefs. Our own Charlie Ryan will play – he’s our own Nashville star and is nominated for the hall of fame. He’ll be singing ‘Hot Rod Lincoln.’ “
Deciding how to disburse the proceeds took some discussion.
“I had a lot of members say that if the proceeds went to the Red Cross, they wouldn’t donate,” she said. “For whatever reason. So I checked in with the National VFW and discovered an emergency fund that we can contribute to.
“All of the monies we raise Sunday will go to that fund to help rebuild and help those VFW posts in the area.”
Music and marinara aren’t the only fund-raisers on the menu, Edwards said. Raffled off will be overnight stays at the Coeur d’Alene Casino, $50 gift certificates from Safeway and meals at Tomato Street, Applebee’s and T.G.I. Friday’s.
“The response has been so good,” she said. “The musicians all donated their talents. All of our suppliers donated food.
“You just feel so helpless when you see something like this happen, and it was frustrating to not be able to do anything to help. At first I wanted to get together a truckload of supplies together and send it down there, but we kept seeing trucks get turned away.”
Instead, she said, she’s thrown herself into putting together Sunday’s event.
“I’ll probably have a nervous breakdown once this is all over,” she joked. “But my goal is to raise $5,000, and I think we can do that.”