Kiwanis stage community asset

EDITOR,
I note with some amusement that in your feature article of July 31 on the Scotts Valley Art and Wine Festival you credit the professional stage as “a donation of the Rotary Club.” Since this is wrong on two counts, it might be instructive to recount a little of its history.
Kiwanian Glenn Soma conceived the idea for the stage and brought it to his club three years ago. It was built from a used trailer frame modified at considerable expense, mostly paid by the Soma family — the stage was donated to Kiwanis by the Somas.
It is now a community asset available for charitable events.
It has been used here at the Art & Wine Festival and the Fourth of July for the past few years and at the Labor Day celebration in Marina. Most recently, it was used at Music in the Park.
Kiwanis always rents the stage. The $1,000 rental fee is used to provide donations to local charities and for the Kiwanis scholarship fund. If the charitable event is in accord with the club’s charitable aims, we may provide a similar donation to offset its cost. This was the case at Music in the Park. The Art & Wine Festival is a commercial event and does not qualify for a Kiwanis charitable donation.
Fancier portable commercial stages are available from private companies. These are West Coast-wide operations mostly out of the Los Angeles area. Rental for these stages starts at about $10,000, plus transportation charges from Southern California. Having such a stage locally is a great asset for our community, and Kiwanis is proud to be its provider.
For information: www.svkiwanis.org.
Joe Miller, Peggie Lopez, Mike Stewart, Kiwanis Club members, Scotts Valley