Volunteers for the Dungeness Schoolhouse and Museum & Arts Center seek to give the historical building a lift — a vertical platform lift.
After years with the chair lift as the only access point to the second floor for those with mobility issues, Shelley Taylor, a local performer and writer, and others with Readers Theatre Plus are putting on a benefit Saturday, Nov. 1, at the schoolhouse as a kickoff to raise about $22,000 for the enclosed lift that would go on the outside of the schoolhouse on the right side of the metal fire escape.
The benefit comes in two parts with Ric Munhall directing the afternoon show at 2 p.m. and an evening show at 5:30 p.m. Depending on weather, a car show will take place around 1 p.m. with food and beverages available.
Afternoon performers include Kyra Humphrey, Vicki Helwick, John Silver, Helen Bucher, Leona Voss, Ron Graham, Michael Aldrich and Sheryl Smith and Treble Around the Sound.
Evening performers include Joel Yelland, Laura Lee Nastri, Sheryl Smith and Treble Around the Sound, Lara Starcevich and Richard Stephens, John T. Silver, Karla Morgan, Carl Honore and Stringology with Peggy Wilson.
Taylor said the chairlift has a been a problem for years.
“It may as well be broken,” she said. “It’s so old and others have tried to repair it but it starts and stops. Plus you can only take one person at a time and it runs out of juice halfway up. It’s beyond repair.”
Judy Stipe with the museum said the chair lift has been a deterrent for too long. “It keeps people out of there,” she said. “(The new lift) is what has to be done to bring up to this millennium.”
Taylor said busloads of people come for different events but couldn’t get up the stairs and that some people have even been carried up the stairs.
Organizers anticipate the project being funded and started in 2015.
“I think we’re going to do real well,” stipe said. “This is huge for us.”
Prior to the kickoff, Stipe said they have about $1,000 in donations already and another $3,000 in pledges. “I know this will happen,” Stipe said. “We’re absolutely thrilled with (Taylor’s) energy and Readers Theatre has had several people come together for this. It’s definitely a community thing.”
For more information about the vertical lift platform, visit http://pnw.cc/D3BEG. For more information, call the museum, 175 W. Cedar St., at 683-8110. Donations for the lift are tax deductible.
Readers Theatre Plus’ Variety Show benefit
When: 2-4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1
Where: Dungeness Schoolhouse, 2781 Towne Road
Tickets: Advance tickets$12 at Purple Haze Lavender and Odyssey Books in Port Angeles; or $15 at the door
Plus: Classic car show weather permitting, food and beverages, 50/50 raffle
Purpose: To purchase vertical lift platform for the Dungeness Schoolhouse
