Festival of Trees
The Florence Festival of Trees will be wrapping up with a live virtual auction on Saturday. It has been a big undertaking according to the Operations Manager of the Oregon Coast Military Museum, Jeff Cannon. Cannon says early on they were preparing for the possibility of having to do the Festival of Trees a little different.
This year we are trying to do the digital format due to the closure, we actually kind of anticipated being closed down this November so we wanted to find a way to still host the event, raise the funds without losing everything we set up and worked on and so far this year it’s looking pretty good.”
He says this year there were a record number of participants involved which meant a record number of trees.
“The Museum is doing over 79 trees on auction. This is the biggest we have ever gone with this event and we have the largest amount of variety this year.”
You can view and bid on the trees at OregonCoastMilitaryMuseum.com. You can also access the live auction there. The live auction will begin at 5 pm on Saturday hosted by KCST’s Wayne Sharpe.
Toys For Tots
We are just a short time away from the annual Toys for Tots campaign. The Marine Corp Toy drive will be collecting and distributing toys in Florence on Tuesday December 8th. Pete Warren with Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue is helping to coordinate the drive in Florence and says this year’s event will be a little different obviously due to the coronavirus restrictions.
“so they’ll be getting in line and then when they drive up we’ll request their documentation and see if it looks good and then we will get the toys for that specific age, gender and value.”
Distribution will begin at 11 am on the 8th at Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue’s main station on Highway 101. Warren says due to COVID-19 it will be a contactless delivery.
“We do not want to have anyone getting out of their cars this year.”
Documents needed to receive toys include proof of residency, proof the child lives within your household and proof of child’s age.
COVID-19 Numbers
The Florence area has seen a case a day over the past three day making this the most active week for coronavirus cases along the local coast. Yesterday Lane County Public Health announced the 43rd case in Florence among the 92 additional cases in the county. The county’s current infectious rate is at 11.09% and almost 4100 people have contracted the virus since March. There have also been 41 deaths reported in association with the pandemic. Statewide the new cases totaled 1,189 and 20 more deaths. Yesterday’s Lane county deaths were two women on 96 and the other 78 and a 90 year old man. The two older fatalities had underlying conditions the third is being investigated. The total number of coronavirus cases to date in the state is 68,503. This past week the Oregon Health Authority reported that it was the most active week for COVID-19 with 8,687 new cases a 34 percent increase over the previous record-high week.
