PHOENIX CIRCLE FOUNDATION
PO
Box 427, Watonga, OK 73772
A charitable and
educational 501(c)(3)nonprofit promoting
and supporting the arts, education, environmental, and
wellness programs to better the lives of disadvantaged
and underserved communities Phone:
(940) 735-1065
email:
phoenixcir@yahoo.com
January 11, 2018
Dear Donors and Supporters,
2018 was a great year of meeting goals and taking on new
projects.
In January we received funds through Keep Oklahoma Beautiful
for a Roadside Beautification grant funded by ODOT. We had already begun the rehabilitation of an
abandoned building on Watonga’s Main Street, and we were able to completely
redo the front of the building with the grant funds from KOB.
During the rest of the year we worked on the
interior of the building, and by October we had a name for a new art space,
WATONGA ARTWORKS, and the Gallery section was open with an informal exhibition of
oil paintings by Watonga artist Brenda Weyrick.
The Gallery also has a small stage and was used for an informal acoustic
show by a touring musician from Massachusetts, Dave Dersham, on the night of
the opening ceremonies of the Watonga Cheese Festival. We are ready to begin art classes and hands-on
art activities for children and families at the ArtWorks building this
spring.
Other Keep Oklahoma
Beautiful projects we were able to get volunteers to participate in were
the Great American Cleanup, Fresh Paint Days, and Lend-a-Bin recycling. The recycling bins were placed at Roman Nose
State Park general store and we collected over 800 pounds of plastic and
aluminum which we delivered to the Weatherford Recycling center.
Volunteers gave a facelift to another
building on Main Street with paint donated through the Fresh Paint Days
program. These efforts did not cost our
organization any money but made a big difference in helping give tourists and
visitors to Watonga a good “first impression”.
In the coming year we plan on participating in all of these projects
plus add a children’s art project using recycled materials as part of KOB’s
“End Litter” program.
Phoenix Circle Foundation was honored by the statewide Keep
Oklahoma Beautiful organization with their Environmental Excellence award for a
Nonprofit serving a Community of less than 15,000, (selected from organizations throughout the state of Oklahoma!) and we were a finalist for
the “Affiliate of the Year” award, which was ultimately given to an Oklahoma City
organization. We were excited just to have been nominated as a finalist for the work of our board members and volunteers in our community.
We have already
submitted an application for KOB's 2019 Roadside Beautification grant
(for roadside directional
signs on Hwy 3/Russworm Dr. to direct visitors to Main Street shopping
district, Blaine County Courthouse, the T.B. Ferguson Home and Museum,
and the Blaine County Fairgrounds. We also submitted a grant for
Environmental Beautification, to establish an educational
program that will include a “learning garden”, healthy lifestyle
choices, recycling and composting.
The OKLAHOMA HOUSE CONCERTS is not only a fundraiser for the Foundation, but also brings free live music concerts
to our town, giving age 17+ residents something to do on a Saturday evening or
Sunday afternoon and brings people from the Metro area and surrounding small towns to our city. The live music series was featured in the November/December issue of the statewide tourism
magazine OKLAHOMA TODAY! The press we received in that magazine (which promoted the
Phoenix Circle Foundation, the concert series, the Chaparral Retreat &
Guesthouse B&B, and the town of Watonga) has resulted in many calls
from Oklahoma musicians and touring musicians across the U.S. wanting to come to our little corner of Oklahoma
to perform! We have shows scheduled through August at this time.
As Linda does every year, she worked with young people in
the County 4H program on a painting project, which many of them entered in the
Blaine County Free Fair and received awards for their work. There is nothing better than seeing the smile
on a young person’s face when they are recognized with an award for their
efforts.
In addition to the visual arts,
we sponsored an afternoon of readings from historical stories about Oklahoma, and a creative writing contest for Blaine County junior and senior
high school students. Thanks to the generosity of Pioneer Telephone, Kiwanis Club, and Patt Curtin, we were able to give Amazon gift cards to the students
who participated. Watonga’s Camden Cope
won first place ($75.00 gift card) for an excellent essay about Clarence Nash that included much more information than I had
ever heard about Nash and his life in additional to being the voice of Donald
Duck. The writing contest was judged by
Tulsa author Mark Darrah, who came to Watonga to give a reading from his book
“A Catalogue of Common People”, and who donated all monies from the sale of his
book that evening to our Foundation. We
plan on creating more reading and writing programs for children of all ages in
this next year.
I am certain I’ve left something out of this summary of our
activities in 2018, but I invite you to stay posted month-to-month by checking the facebook page “Phoenix Circle
Foundation” throughout the year. We
thank you for your financial and moral support during the past year and look
forward to an even more successful year in 2019.
