Holidays and great consolations

Hello friends of Fishtrap,

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season. This year, as I sometimes do, I’ll be helping a slew of other volunteers put on a community Christmas meal – even if the weather hasn’t exactly felt like Christmas.

I was walking down an Enterprise street on gray concrete spattered with ice and black pools of water and chunks of gravel. A shroud of frozen fog muffled my breath. As I walked by the Range Rider, where, as a young Forest Service employee, I drank thin beer and breathed second-hand smoke in the days before micro-brews and smoking bans, I noticed in the window a small handwritten sign: “The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks. – Voltaire.” Proof, perhaps, of the insidious influence of Fishtrap in this remote corner of Oregon.

A friend and Fishtrap advisor, perhaps a student of Voltaire, told me what he thought about my recent fundraising letter: “It could use more BITE.” The readers, he said, need to know how expensive Fishtrap is to run and why now is an important time to give.

I’m afraid he’s right. Our donations so far this fall are the lowest they’ve ever been since we started sending out fundraising letters. In fact, they are running at about one HALF of what they were last year, both in number of donors and in dollars given. Last fall, we received $16,000 in donations. This fall, knowing that money would be tight for folks, we set the more modest goal of $12,000. But we’ve only received $7,000 to date.

Just how expensive IS Fishtrap to run? Summer Fishtrap costs nearly $90,000. The Big Read is a $25,000 series of events. Winter Fishtrap, at $35,000, has seen its food and lodging costs rise by 50% over the past few years. What these three programs have in common with nearly all of Fishtrap’s fifteen programs is that the registration fees we charge, if any, do not cover their full cost. Only with grants and donations from people like you can we continue to operate.

At a recent advisory board meeting, the director of another writer’s program, who was sitting in as a guest, expressed amazement that, with the equivalent of 2 1/2 employees, Fishtrap is able to do all it does. Yes, the staff work hard, and our board members and volunteers work hard. Help us keep helping people, to say what they think, and say it well.

If you have not donated to Fishtrap this fall, you still have time to make a tax-deductible contribution before year-end. You can give on-line with a credit card by going to www.fishtrap.org/donate.shtml. Or drop a check in the mail to Fishtrap, POB 38, Enterprise, OR 97828. And if you live in Oregon, remember that you can match your gift to Fishtrap with a gift to the Oregon Cultural Trust that doesn’t cost you a penny, because it’s a tax credit. Go to http://www.culturaltrust.org/ for more info.

Thank you, and I hope that you enjoy the holidays.

Sincerely,

Rick Bombaci, Executive Director
Fishtrap, Inc.