Vappu Spring Festival 2024
Schedule
Sun Apr 28 2024 at 01:00 pm to 04:00 pm
Location
1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley, CA, United States, California 94702 | Berkeley, CA
Vappu Spring Festival 2024! Finnish Heritage Society present the Vappu Spring Festival 2024!
A celebration the Spring!
Food, Raffle, Music, and more!
PERFORMANCE
Poetry by Anita Erola
Vappu story by Richard Hourula
Live music by Vappu Band Heikki Koskinen; e-trumpet & arr. / Rent Romus: alto sax/ Katja Eliot; vocals & ten sax / Eli Knowles piano/drums
MENU
Karjalanpiirakka - A savory Karelian pie filled with rice topped with egg butter
Spring salad with watermelon radish, cucumber, red cabbage, snap peas, avocado and roasted pumpkin seeds with a shallot vinaigrette
Finnish berry cake with fresh whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.
Water, coffee, juice included
RAFFLE ITEMS
- Frank L Wright inspired mugs
- Finnish Fazer chocolate bars
- Claremont Hotel massage/restaurant coupon
- Finnish Arola weaved mohair woolen blanket
- Private reserve limited edition wine from vintner Katja Eliot
- Rent Romus/Heikki Koskinen's Itkuja Suite Compact Disc
- Itkuja Suite Suite coffee mug sets
- Richard Hourula's signed copy of "Threat of Night"
- Homemade Jams
- Finnish candle holders
FREE event admission including complimentary Coffee & tea
BUFFET TICKETS - $20, Kids under 12 - $15
beer, wine $5
Raffle tickets 1 for $5 or 3 for $10
Produced by the Finnish Heritage Society’s Cultural Committee
Many thanks to all the volunteers! Finnishhall.org
ALL PROCEEDS HELP THE HALL ADA PROJECT!!!
Make a donation today!
https://www.gofundme.com/f/berkeley-finn-hall-accessibility
Over a hundred years ago, Finns immigrated to the East Bay. Many came in the great migration of the 1890s to the 1910s. The families wanted a space of their own, where they could speak Finnish, eat food from the Old Country, and celebrate important holidays such as Vappu and Finnish Independence Day. Members of that
group built the Finnish Hall on Berkeley’s Chestnut Street, a beautiful and historic building that has been cared for by descendants of these Finnish settlers since its completion in 1932. Now the Hall needs all of us.
People may ask why this is important now, in 2024. Although the Hall functions as a center for Finnish culture only a few times a year, its auditorium, stage, and meeting rooms are active every single day. While people may no longer identify or feel kinship with an ethnic group, people need community, and they find it within religious, dance, arts, and other kinships. The Hall serves Barefoot Boogie, Oakland Symphony Choir rehearsals, Lowiczanie Polish Folk Dance Ensemble, Diablo Grotto Spelunkers, Indivisible Berkeley, and Spindles and Flyers Textile Guild, among many others. These groups are as important to contemporary East Bay residents as the Hall was to Finnish immigrants in decades past.
For years the Board of Trustees wanted to improve access to the Hall. Now we are embarking on a major construction project to add ADA bathrooms and access to both the auditorium and kitchen levels. We need your help.
A fundraising target of $250,000 has been set, and construction will begin this June. Please become a part of this venture that will serve generations to come. The East Bay needs quality spaces where people can find themselves as well as each other, where arts and dance thrive, where community grows through talk and
advocacy. Please support what our founders dreamed of: a place they can call home.
Once we finish the accessibility project, that home will truly be for everyone. We are including two attachments: one gives more details about the accessibility project and the other provides more of the Hall’s history.
Sincerely,
The Finnish Heritage Society