The Muse event raised more than twice what was expected. The Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley pledged $50,000 for a complete renovation of the Community Center’s kitchen. Submitted photo
The Sonoma Community Center can go ahead with a long-desired kitchen makeover, following the fourth annual Sonoma Valley Muse fundraiser April 20.
“The coldest event ever!” said Kathy Swett, the center’s executive director. “I was surprised, not just because of the cold but because of the current state of the economy. … We were not expecting to do nearly as well as we did.”
This year’s Muse auction, raised $130,000 for the community center – roughly matching 2007’s total but more than doubling this year’s target of $60,000. Swett said that the Rotary Club, represented by Rich Lee and Gary Edwards, pledged $50,000 toward the SCC’s kitchen remodel.
“It’s going to look like a different room,” Swett said, noting the “thousands and thousands of community dinners [that] have been cooked in there.”
The Vadasz Estate near Sonoma was the site of this year’s Muse. Swett said the choice of venue was in keeping with the Muse ideal of annually celebrating local artistic inspiration: the first year celebrated author M.F.K. Fisher, the second newspaper publisher Robert Lynch, and last year focused on Jack London. “This year,” she said, “we thought, ‘Why not celebrate what this land has done?’”
