A brand-new Central Oregon non-profit will celebrate creativity, community and regenerative action with its first fundraiser on Saturday, Oct. 17 at the Century Center in Bend.
The New ERA Festival will feature live music from several local acts across four stages, silent and live auctions, and a market filled with goods from growers, makers and doers. While the event is free, the suggested donation is $20. Proceeds benefit the Endowment for Regenerative Artists, which received its 501c3 designation two months ago.
“We’re a non-profit committed to empowering regenerative, creative action in our community and in the world,” said Charles Utter, head of ERA. “When you look it up in the dictionary, you’ll see synonyms like ‘renewal’, and what regenerative means to a lot of people right now is the practice of caring for the earth in a way that leaves it better than they found it, and it’s often associated with regenerative agriculture. The way we mean it uses all of that and beyond because it’s about being committed to and caring about whatever we create as something that contributes to ourselves and to others and about a future we can all believe in.”
The High Desert Music Collective is hosting the ERA fundraiser, which will have live-music stages at The Commonwealth Pub, GoodLife Brewing, Prost! Bend and in the courtyard at Volcanic Theatre Pub, which is the site of the festival’s market. Musical acts include Jeshua Marshall & The Flood, Aage Birch, The Color Study, Wolfchild, Eel Sallad and more.
Utter said that while ERA is newly formed, there are plans in the works to promote support for community and the planet.
“We want to do more of this type of fundraising event that directly supports creativity and members of the community that care about regenerative action, whether it’s farmers or artists or social-impact people,” Utter said. “We also want to grant funds to organizations that are sharing in this mission, and we want to have educational programming that will continue to spread the idea of what creative regenerative action can look like and can support the organizations that receive our funding.”
New ERA Festival
Sat., Oct. 17, Noon-11pm
Century Center
70 SW Century Dr., Bend
https://www.era.community/events/new-era-fest/new-era-fest
Free but $20 donation suggested
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