For immediate release, February 25, 2002

Contact Hal Howland, 305-295-4369

The Florida Keys Council of the Arts will host a special party for new and renewing members of the arts council on Saturday, March 23, from 6 to 9 p.m., at the beautifully landscaped home of Patricia Mull, Villa Maria, MM 92, bayside, in Tavernier.

Called Swing Barefoot on the Beach, the party will feature the exciting and popular Paradise Big Band. Winner of an ArtReach grant from the Florida Keys Council of the Arts, the PBB is an eighteen-piece repertory group that travels Keyswide performing the music of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and other great jazz composers.

The party is cosponsored by Mull & Associates Financial Center, LLC, and Guttenmacher & Bohatch, PA.

Arts council membership benefits include quarterly mailings of the essential Who What When & Where calendar brochure (the Keys' most comprehensive arts and culture calendar), advance notice of special events, discounts on career-building workshops, and more. Suggested arts council membership levels are $15 "Starving Artist," $25 Individual/Household, and $100 Donor/Business. (Donations up to and beyond the $25,000 Top Billing level are welcome.)

Membership dues and private donations are essential to continuing the arts council's programs such as ArtReach, Artists in Schools, the ArtWorks initiative for at-risk teens, and Arts Access artist residencies. Community support of the arts council is ever more necessary at a time when funding for the arts and for arts education is being threatened at every level of government.

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