While the rain poured down outside on May 19, residents enjoyed arts and crafts along with musical performances at PortFest as they stayed dry inside Schreiber High School.
“I think the community has a lot of connection to us and I think, on a rainy day, we give them something good to come out for,” said founder and chairman of HEARTS Damon Gersh. “The whole point of PortFest is about creativity and innovation, so I love how our team came together and improvised. We were creative about how we were going to do this indoors so we’re kind of living our mission in that way.”
PortFest featured crafts like slime-making, dog-tag creating and Plant A Row For the Hungry Port Washington pot painting. The day featured the Sousa jazz band, the Weber pop choir, Schreiber a capella, local bands Stupid 7 and Rock Steady, Curtains Up workshop and alumni, the Schreiber cast of The Little Mermaid and Port Summer Show, Bach To Rock and the Berest Dance Center.
“I’ve evolved slowly into running this event,” said HEARTS events chair Lisa Marschall. “I’ve helped since day one doing different jobs. I learned all the different pieces. The arts in school are everything. Music is personally my life, I’m a musician, my son is a drummer. There’s driving forces for sports and driving forces for education, but we need to be the driving force for the arts. We need to raise awareness and money and get it filtered into the school.”
All of the revenue earned from the event goes directly towards supporting and enriching the arts in the Port Washington School District.
