Another memorable gala - this time with bird houses!

May 2

West Tuality Habitat for Humanity held its annual gala April 27th and it was another wonderful evening of community and celebration in Western Washington County.

About 130 people attended the gala at the Forest Grove Senior & Community Center, enjoying a delicious meal and raising money for our programs to help more people become homeowners and to help more vulnerable homeowners stay in their homes in Western Washington County.

A new feature this year was more than 40 custom-built, custom-designed birdhouses for our auction - the birdhouses alone raised more than $2,000! Check out our video that shows a few of these beautiful pieces. Birdhouse artists included Gail Clary Lynne Magner Gayle Pedemonte Pat Truax Pete Truax Dee Sutton Katri Laukanen Dana Kinsman Diane Morris Carmen Silva Jackie Slaughter Jeff Pettit Cindy Wolpin Alayn Waldorf Anne Wellington Amy Jones Philip Thais Rames Verlinder Dexter Danielson Lauri Wandell Helvi Smith Karri Robison Amy Tracewell Theresa Floyd Dan Hornberger Kathy Compton and Sue Nemchick.

Not all of these beautiful bird houses sold - follow the Forest Grove ReStore on Facebook or Instagram or check out the current offerings via the Forest Grove ReStore web site to see when these are available for purchase.

We were pleased to see so many officials and representatives of other community groups in attendance, including our area’s Oregon State Senator, Janeen Sollman (and thank you, Senator, for sharing your photos of the event as well!), Forest Grove Mayor Malynda Wenzl, Forest Grove City Councilor Timothy Rippe, and many others.

We are grateful to the Forest Grove High School chapter members of Latinos In Action for their participation in supporting our gala. We'd like to see them again - next time with hammers in their hands at a Habitat for Humanity home build or critical home repair event!! We also thank Tesa Niko and Chester Zamora for volunteering and supporting our event.

Another big thank you goes to professional photographer Aquilina Larkins, who volunteered at our Gala by donating her services to take the beautiful photos at our event. Some of her photos are featured below. We found her via VolunteerMatch, where we post all of our roles for volunteers, including roles like these that require speciality skills.

An essential part of the success of our gala was our sponsors: thank you to Heritage Bank, First Community Credit Union, PARR, Bunny Girt / State Farm, the North Plains Chamber of Commerce and Wedge & Cured for their support of the gala with sponsorship and attendance. We appreciate you!

Would you like to sponsor a West Tuality Habitat event, helping us defer costs and thereby putting more money towards affordable housing and critical home repairs in our community? Send an email to development@westtualityhabitat.org if you are interested in learning more.

Thank you to everyone who attended!