46 years and counting: Correcting the record and looking ahead to another summer of art in Fairbanks

COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVE

By Susan Rice

Last week, a paid advertisement from the Bill Stroecker Foundation published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner included some erroneous information about the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival that surprised us and that we would like to clarify for our community.

The piece referred to the “conclusion” of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, described a charitable space as having been “vacated” by FSAF, and stated that FSAF “is now fully sponsored by the University of Alaska.”

Those descriptions do not accurately reflect where FSAF is today, and because our relationships with our community, partners, and supporters matter so much to us, we want to make sure the record is clear.

FSAF has not concluded or ceased operations, nor have we vacated our role in providing arts education and programming in Interior Alaska. Quite the opposite! This summer, we proudly celebrated our 46th year in Fairbanks, bringing visiting artists, students, performers, and community members together for another festival. We continue to offer programming across many artistic disciplines, including the jazz education and performance programming that has long been at the heart of our relationship with the Stroecker Foundation.

FSAF is also not “fully sponsored” by the University of Alaska. The university does not financially sponsor FSAF.

We are an independent nonprofit organization, and we greatly value our longstanding partnership with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Portions of the festival take place on the UAF campus, where FSAF pays all applicable costs for the facilities, equipment, housing, parking, and other services we use. UAF is an important community partner, and we are grateful for that relationship. Partnership, however, is different from financial sponsorship or organizational affiliation.

That distinction matters because FSAF continues to depend upon the incredible generosity of this community.

Like many community nonprofits, we make the festival possible through participant fees, ticket revenue, grants, sponsorships, and charitable contributions. Every contribution helps us bring artists to Fairbanks, create opportunities for local musicians and artists, keep programming accessible, and offer free performances throughout our community. A statement that another institution “fully sponsors” FSAF could understandably leave readers with the impression that community support is no longer needed. It very much is, and we remain enormously grateful for it.

That gratitude certainly includes the Bill Stroecker Foundation, which has supported FSAF for many years, particularly our jazz programming, reflecting Bill Stroecker’s well-known love of jazz and commitment to the arts in Fairbanks.

According to the Stroecker Foundation’s own published history, Bill identified 50 specific charities in his last will and testament that he wished to receive continuous support. The foundation specifically names the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, created by Jo Scott and Edward Madden in describing Bill’s wishes for ongoing charitable giving. We are sincerely grateful for the foundation’s longstanding generosity to FSAF, including its financial support this year.

We are also thrilled to see the Stroecker Foundation supporting Jump Start Music Camp and investing in additional opportunities for music education and youth in our community. Fairbanks is fortunate to have many organizations doing good work in the arts, and there is plenty of room to celebrate them all.

After the advertisement appeared, we reached out to the Stroecker Foundation to share our concerns. We are grateful for the foundation’s response, its acknowledgment that errors were made, and its commitment to correcting them. We deeply appreciate the grace and care with which our concerns were received and look forward to continuing a relationship that has meant so much to FSAF over many years.

In that same spirit, we wanted to make sure our community heard directly from us: FSAF is still here.

For more than four decades, FSAF has brought people together through music, art, learning, and the joy of creating alongside one another. That story belongs to generations of artists, participants, volunteers, donors, partners, and Fairbanks families who have made the Festival part of their summers.

If you would like to hear more about where FSAF has been, where we are today, and where we are headed next, we would love to welcome you at our annual meeting at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 27, at 8 Star Event Center. We’ll have desserts to share while we celebrate this past summer and talk about what is ahead. Everyone is welcome, and those who would like to participate as voting members can join FSAF for just $10 annually.

And, despite reports of our “conclusion,” we are very much here — and already looking forward to our 47th summer of making art together in Fairbanks!

Susan Rice is the executive director of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival.

Fairbanks artist Vladimir Zhikhartsev leads a painting class in Delta Junction.

COURTESY FAIRBANKS SUMMER ARTS FESTIVAL