Carl Cherry Center for the Arts needs your help in a fundraising effort.

This year, the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts received less funding than in the past, to the point that the annual Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts School Poetry Awards were threatened. But the center not only organized some funds since the sad news that dropped late in 2023, but is also throwing a fundraiser—and a fantastic poetry evening—to secure its future. Book you calendar for 3pm, Saturday Jan. 20, at the Cherry Center in Carmel to support the comeback effort.

It's then that a benefit reading for the Cherry Center’s Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts High School Poetry Awards will be held. Local writers Patrice Vecchione, George Lober, Philip (Rags) Rosenberg, Anne Mitchell and Ruchowitz-Roberts will read selections of their poetry in the Cherry Center gallery. 

Established in 1994 to increase literacy, empower youth, and invigorate communities through poetry and recognize and promote excellence in high school poets, the High School Poetry Awards were created as a collateral program to "Thinking Out Loud", the Carl Cherry Center's annual high school art exhibit.   

The reading will also serve as a book launch for Anne Mitchell’s new book of poetry, Fog Totem.

Mitchell has called Carmel home for over 30 years. A lifelong writer, when the year 2020 brought the unexpected realm of solitude and poetry to present itself, she became a willing conversationalist. She enjoys the theater, and has acted in staged readings at The Cherry, The Listening Place and Eulalia Theater. Fog Totem is being published this month.

Reservations required. Tickets are by donation, available on eventbrite.com or by calling 624-7491. Suggested donation at the door: $15-$20.