Masters Tell Tales at 9th Annual Storytelling Festival

Vashon Wilderness Program will host its 9th Annual Storytelling Festival - Fundraiser and Dessert Auction on Sunday, January 31 at the Open Space for Arts and Community on Vashon Island. Starting at 1:30pm, attendees can experience their Sensory Forest, make nature crafts, and start bidding on their favorite sweet-treat at their Dessert Auction. Beginning at 2pm, storytellers Roger Fernandes, Bonny Moss, and Ted Packard will delight all with an imaginative afternoon of storytelling; complimentary food and beverages will be served during intermission. The proceeds will support the VASHON WILDERNESS PROGRAM mission to provide nature immersion experiences for Puget Sound youth.

“Storytelling is inseparable from human life,” explains Stacey Hinden, executive director of VASHON WILDERNESS PROGRAM.  “For generations, we have been telling story - be it around a fire to convey lessons for survival; at the dinner table to relay a funny happening from our day; or snuggling up in the dark night to whisper a bedtime tale of wonder. The Storytelling Festival will stir the imagination of all who listen, allowing our unconscious to take flight into sensuous realms of magic, myth and hero.”

This is Vashon Wilderness Program’s biggest community celebration of the year, drawing hundreds of people from Vashon and beyond to share in the ancient and powerful practice of the oral storytelling tradition.

It’s also their only live fundraising event of the year, where folks like you have helped them to give over $100,000 in scholarships to date, and ensure that they remain a vital community resource for deep nature connection mentoring on Vashon!

Don’t miss this wonderful, family-friendly event! Join your friends and show your support for Vashon Wilderness Program!

Roger Fernandes (Kawasa) is a member of Lower Elwha Band of the S’Klallam Indians from the Port Angeles area of the state of Washington. He is a Coast Salish storyteller, artist, tribal historian, and distinguished recipient of a folk life award from the Washington Arts Commission for his work in teaching about Coast Salish art. Roger brings old stories alive again, offering their teachings to today’s children and adults, with a traditional approach allowing each group to find interpretations and knowledge at their own level. He offers stories that lead to a spiritual and emotional understanding of how to live in the world - in balance with family, community, and nature. Roger has recorded a CD “Teachings of the First People” that shares several of the stories he tells in his performances. More information about Roger can be found at Turtle Island Storytellers.

Bonny Moss has been telling tales and spinning yarns in word and movement since she was just a wee one. She is a bit of a story nerd, in fact, and thinks of most of her life as a tale, a thread woven into the tapestry of the great Story of which we are all part. She spent her youth organizing and performing in Islewilde, Vashon’s community art festival, went on to perform locally on various stages, and found her way to Sante Fe to be a belly dancer. Bonny is honored to have been an apprentice in VWP’s Nourishing Nature program, and is the parent of a super happy Fire Tender student for the past three years ... and counting.

Ted Packard has been telling stories since he could talk; some of them have even been true. When he moved to Washington in 2011 to become a self-sufficient, nature-smart, outdoors superhero, he left behind a life on stage as a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and storyteller. After rooting in the wet, green, glory of this land, he learned that self-sufficiency is best found in community, and that mentoring kids and teens into adults that are nature-connected and self-aware was his true calling. A recovering Almost-History-Teacher, Ted practices storytelling as a tool in mentoring and as an art in of itself. Ted works with the Vashon Wilderness Program and Quiet Heart Wilderness School, and runs a free after-school program on Vashon.

Major sponsors for the 9th Annual Storytelling Festival include Vashon Wilderness Program (VWP), Artisan Electric, Aruba Tileworks & Pottery, and Forest Halls.

VWP (a 501c3 non-profit) provides nature immersion programs for youth ages 4-17 from Vashon and surrounding Puget Sound communities. Storytelling is a core routine at VWP: mentors practice oral traditions to inspire and instill lessons and to help cultivate a learning community that values each person’s life story; and VWP students practice sharing their story of day to both help deepen their learning journey and discover their authentic voice. To date, VWP has helped more than 800 children, teens and adults transform through Coyote Mentoring, an approach to deep nature connection mentoring which has been touted by award-winning author Richard Louv as “... good medicine for nature deficit disorder.”

Tickets for the 9th Annual Storytelling Festival are $40/family & $20/individual (advance) or $45/family & $25/individual (door). All tickets include admission, entrance to the Sensory Forest, nature crafting, and complimentary food and beverages. Tickets can be purchased from Brown Paper Tickets or Vashon Bookshop.