An evening concert brought Linfield students and community members together to raise money for Juliette’s House on April 21 in Ice Auditorium.

The concert was titled “Community in the Spotlight,” and it featured student and community artists who played music styles from traditional Irish and Scottish tunes to jazzy original songs and casual blues to Texas-style fiddling.

“In high school, I was part of Key Club, and I decided I wanted to showcase talent and raise money,” said sophomore Chelsea Ploof, who organized the concert and got the artists together. “So this concert is kind of a similar thing. The high school one was called ‘Night of the Arts,’ and it had musical performance and a kind of art gallery. We ended up raising around $800. So I wanted to continue that kind of event in college.”

Ploof said when she came to Linfield, she got involved in Circle K Club as a continuation of Key Club,  which is the kind of community service organization that wants to help out and get involved in the community. According to Ploof, the club has helped out in soup kitchens, gardens and senior homes.

“I thought it was important to bring together the community and Linfield,” Ploof said. “We started planning this a long time ago, like toward the beginning of this school year, and it kind of became this mix of students and community artists.”

Juliette’s House is a child abuse intervention center in McMinnville that was created in 1997 to be a child-friendly facility for the assessment of child abuse. Ploof said she knew she wanted to donate the proceeds of “Community in the Spotlight” to some community-oriented cause, so she settled on Juliette’s House.

“This concert is something I hope to continue,” Ploof said. “It just blossomed into this huge event, and there was a lot of support from Circle K. I was really impressed with the performance.”

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Sharon Gollery/Culture editor
Sharon Gollery can be reached at [email protected].