A week or so after my friend Myrtle Hoffman died in 2004, I got a call from Walt Pendergrass. Walt, an attorney, told me that he was Myrtle and Lloyd’s trustee and they had left their home and assets to the community for “a center to support the arts, education and the library.”
He asked if I would like to get involved in making that happen.
It instantly occurred to me that this was a great idea. Manzanita could really use something like this. We were a community filled with artists and people who appreciate all kinds of arts, yet we had no central location to gather and show this support.
Not realizing the amount of work that would be involved, or anticipating the amount of passion it would engender in me, I told Walt to count me in. It’s been a labor, but a labor toward a vision.
With the Hoffmans’ gift to the community they loved, we can have an appropriate facility to nurture all kinds of artistic endeavors – creating, performing and appreciating.
The future is going to be rosy for the Hoffman Center, but we will all need to work toward that end. It’s not just the members of our board, or our already involved corps of volunteers, who are going to build the Hoffman Center. The community is going to build the Hoffman Center.