Volunteers hope for Cape arts advisory board
With the Cape Coral Council for Arts and Humanities disbanded, the former members of the group hope the city will add an advisory board to concentrate on public cultural activities.
In the meantime, the group has taken remaining funds and donated them to other local groups.
Phyllis Shelton, former president of the group, said the membership of the council had dwindled to almost non-existent and that they wanted a different approach to the one the group had had for years.
The group had originally decided to disband in February in a public meeting, but changed its mind, deciding to wait until November.
“We did some research and decided what would best serve our community would be to encourage the city to have an advisory board for arts and humanities,” Shelton said. “They would concentrate on cultural activities through arts in public places.”
There is no word on when or if the city will take up that job anytime soon. Shelton said this concept has been done in other cities such as Venice.
The council was founded in 1990 by June Sommerfield, who became its first president and spearheaded the long-running scholarship program called “Stars of Tomorrow,” which ran at the Cultural Park Theater.
Shelton said while the program was successful, it soon became the organization’s only focus, which it was never intended to be.
“That was her focus for the years she was involved and that’s not what the focus of our by-laws was intended to be,” Shelton said. “It was the only thing we got done. The reality is that we had outgrown that program because the number of participants was so small, we felt it was necessary to put something in the paper.”
As for the money collected by the group, it has been divvied up among other groups.
They gave their remaining funds, more than $5,000, equally to the occupants of the Cultural Park, the Cape Coral Art League, the Cape Coral Historical Society Museum, and the Cultural Park Theater Company.