Shakespeare, please
Dear City Council members,
I am a longtime Mercer Island resident and was astonished to see that Mercer Island is not hosting Shakespeare in the park performances this summer.
As you all know, the Mercer Island Arts Council and Mercer Island Parks and Recreation have been consistent supporters of Seattle Shakespeare and Wooden O productions in Luther Burbank Park since 1994. Tens of thousands of Mercer Islanders have enjoyed these amazing performances over the years. Seattle Shakespeare has welcomed all comers at no charge, without reservations, and at a very modest cost to the city and its taxpayers. The benefits to our community have been incalculable.
Given the COVID-driven necessity to cancel the 2020 season, Mercer Island could have ensured and resumed our usual sponsor’s role for the upcoming but shortened 2021 season if you had chosen to make it a priority. Regardless of concerns about COVID protocols and the usual budgeting and planning constraints, the main requirement was for the city to issue a permit to Seattle Shakespeare, as it had consistently done for the previous quarter century.
I would strongly urge the Council to follow the Bard’s advice. Just move forward “Measure for Measure” and avoid a “Tempest” by reinstating Shakespeare in the park in 2022!
This time next year, you can then reminisce about 2021’s “Comedy of Errors” as “Much Ado about Nothing” rather than “Love’s Labours Lost.”
Menno van Wyk, Mercer Island
Thank you MICF
If there was ever a single organization on the Island that brings people together to make a positive impact in our community, it’s the Mercer Island Community Fund.
The Mercer Island Historical Society is grateful to the MICF for granting us funds this year to continue digitizing past issues of the Mercer Island Reporter. On behalf of the board of the Mercer Island Historical Society, we thank the Mercer Island Community Fund for helping us preserve the Island’s history.
Since it was founded in 1985, the MICF has raised money to provide grants benefiting the MI community in the arts, environment, community development, recreation, social services, education and health There’s hardly an area of life on the Island that has not benefited from a grant from MICF.
Jane Brahm and Terry Moreman, co-presidents, Mercer Island Historical Society
More thanks for MICF
On behalf of the Mercer Island Guild, we would like to thank the Mercer Island Community Fund for granting the Mercer Island Guild $1,000 to assist with the production of the 2022 Mercer Island Directory.
This grant will assist the Mercer Island Guild in preparing and printing the 2022 Mercer Island Directory, which will be delivered mid-March 2022. The 2022 Directory will be our 80th year of producing the Directory for the Mercer Island community.
The goal of the Mercer Island Guild is to prepare a listing of our residents, who wish to be included in the Directory (name, address, phone number or even an email address). It also includes listing businesses who have a storefront, at home business here on the Island, as well as listing businesses, off-Island, that service the needs of the Mercer Island residents. We work hard to include everyone that wishes to be in the Directory.
The 30 Guild members begin each fall by contacting businesses that are located on Mercer Island or service our Island community with needed services that we all use, to purchase ads in our Directory.
We encourage all Mercer Island Residents to add their information by contacting us at miphonebook@gmail.com or by calling 206-232-7527.
This grant will assist us in raising funds for Uncompensated Care (which is the medical expenses to Seattle Children’s, that is NOT offset by payments from Medicaid, grants and donations); as well as for world-class pediatric research at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Their medical results and discoveries have and will undoubtedly benefit families here on Mercer Island as well as children around the world.
JoAnne Jones, President, Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Mercer Island Guild
