Health & Fitness
Eli Cannon's Tap Room Donates $500 to Oddfellows Playhouse
Oddfellows receives over $500 in donations from Eli Cannon's Tap Room in Middletown.
The weather outside was perfect this past Tuesday forEli Cannon's Taproom owner Phil Ouellette and head manager Carrie Carella to present Matthew Pugliese (Oddfellows Executive Director) with a $500 donation that was raised through last week's mini beer fest. Ouellette personally matched the $500 donation to Oddfellows as well.
Coming from a youth-acting background himself, Ouellette was enthusiastic to help out Oddfellows and to promote the local community to work together. He also offered to keep the door open for further fund raising opportunities for Oddfellows: to help them rebuild their lost prop and art department.
The local acting outlet for children is important to Ouellette as he explained, "It's not about us, it's about all of us."
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Pugliese was almost speechless with all the help that Oddfellows had been receiving from Eli Cannon's and other donators through the community. "We do have a new space to store our props and costumes now," Pugliese said, "but our Circus performance was built on community support."
The Circus was Oddfellows' last show. It had over 1,000 spectators and featured 150 8-12-year-old children, many of whom learned their skills for the first time at the circus camp.
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Oddfellows' next show will be "Slaughter House 5" (based on the book, which was adapted to the stage by Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago). The play uses satire to approach the emotions that soldiers feel when they return home from war. The choice is typical of Oddfellows, as Pugliese explains, because this play lends maturity to the young actors and raises expectations of what the youth can do. That show will be going on Nov. 11-19.
Pugliese couldn't express his thanks enough for people's time and resources in helping out Oddfellows. He also explained that he didn't approach Eli Cannon's, but rather they contacted him with the offer to help.
Pugliese summed up the help Oddfellows has been receiving by saying, "Oddfellows couldn't exist if it weren't for businesses like Eli Cannon's."
