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Wednesday, August 21, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Sisters Folk Festival contributes to community
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
What began 23 years ago
as a one-day music event
with a few hundred attendees
at the then Sisters Middle-
High School (now the mid-
dle school), has grown and
evolved into a three-day,
11-venue celebration of
Americana music in which
<All The Town9s a Stage.=
People come from within
and well beyond Oregon
to enjoy a rich variety of
music by over 46 artists and
groups during the Sisters
Folk Festival. As the festi-
val has grown, so has the
town of Sisters. In 1996 the
town9s population was less
than 1,000. Today it stands
near 2,800 just within the city
limits. Sisters Country (the
school district boundaries) is
closer to 10,000.
Attendance now reaches
about 4,000 people who flock
to Sisters the weekend after
Labor Day for the three-day
festival, one of the major
events for which Sisters is
famous. Others are the Sisters
Rodeo, which will celebrate
its 80th year in June 2020,
and the Sisters Outdoor Quilt
Show, which attracts 10,000
people a year to town the
second Saturday of July. The
Sisters Rhythm and Brews
Festival hosted its second
music event last month.
A newcomer in October
this year will be the Sisters
Book Festival, October 18-20.
These city-wide events
contribute to the economic
vitality of this small town
at the foot of the Cascades
and make the name of
Sisters, Oregon, known
internationally.
Accommodation for event
attendees, including lodg-
ing and camping facilities,
restaurant meals and food,
parking and fuel, medical
and other services, and shop-
ping, help support local busi-
nesses. The festival had to
be cancelled in 2017 due to
the health hazards of smoke
from surrounding wildfires.
That cancellation hit the local
economy hard.
Throughout the years, the
SFF has worked closely with
the City and local businesses
to maximize local benefits of
the festival and minimize any
disturbance or inconvenience
to the citizens of Sisters.
Larger crowds mean more
demand for parking spaces
around the various ven-
ues. Each year, the SFF has
worked to improve their oper-
ations. They have arranged
for bike corrals, shuttles, and
venues within walking dis-
tances to encourage a reduc-
tion in auto traffic. This year,
there is a new camping venue
available at the high school
parking lot (see related story,
page 1).
What started as the
dream of local residents Jim
Cornelius, editor in chief of
The Nugget, and initial owner
of Paulina Springs Books,
Dick Sandvik, has grown into
a year-round center for cre-
ativity and community music.
In addition to producing
the annual Folk Festival, this
local non-profit has sponsored
the Americana Project in the
Sisters schools for the past 20
CELEBRATE!
MILESTONES•FESTIVITIES•ACHIEVEMENTS
Abundant Living in Central Oregon
Central Oregon
n gives
g iv
ives
es us s much
h to celebrate
cellebrate — from
m its
natural beauty to its many events and festivities, to the
extraordinary accomplishments of our exceptional locals.
Celebrate! aims to… well… celebrate these stories of
milestones reached, of challenges overcome, stories of
creativity and innovation, stories of festive times and life-
changing moments.
Celebrate! is designed as a magazine-style “keeper”
piece, both an interesting read and a reference
guide when planning all kinds of celebrations. We
invite business owners to promote celebration gifts,
food, dining and catering, decorating, entertainment,
photography, venue ideas and more, that will help make it
easy for Central Oregon residents and visitors to add fun
and fl are to their lives and activities.
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of saying thank you to the
community for its support of
the SFF, a series a three free
summer concerts has been
held at Fir Street Park. During
the quieter winter season, the
Winter Concert Series brings
first-rate performers to the
high school auditorium for
the enjoyment of tickethold-
ers. Those performers also
spend time in the classrooms
with students.
The newest SFF project is
the Connected by Creativity
capital campaign, which is
enabling the purchase of the
Sisters Art Works building,
a strategic investment in a
permanent facility for SFF
and providing for expanded
programming of multigen-
erational classes and events,
greater community collabo-
ration and partnerships, and
stimulating the regional econ-
omy by growing a vibrant
music and arts culture attract-
ing visitors to Sisters.
The Nugget Newspaper Presents
C H E C K O U T
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years, providing arts-related
education for all grade levels.
The program has expanded
to include visual arts as well.
The luthier program at the
high school teaches students
how to make their own uku-
leles and guitars. This year,
six alumni of the Americana
Project will be performing
during the Folk Festival.
The Americana Project
Arts Outreach Scholarship
program, in partnership with
Family Access Network, pro-
vides arts-related scholarships
to over 100 Sisters children,
enabling them to take dance
classes, art classes, and music
lessons, helping students real-
ize their full potential.
Songwriting camps for
both adults and youth are held
each year, with SFF perform-
ers providing the instruction
for the adult camp held for
three days at Caldera prior to
the festival.
In recent years, as a way
• Bold 10-inch-tall format • 25,000 copies printed
• Distributed inside The Nugget in early October to
reach every household in the Sisters School District,
on newstands Sisters-wide, and at 150 strategic
locations throughout Central Oregon.
• Digital magazine distributed on NuggetNews.com,
Facebook, and issuu.com.
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