BUENA PARK : Fund-Raiser Concert for Arts Sold Out

The Buena Park Cultural Arts Foundation hopes to raise between $20,000 and $30,000 from a sold-out Victor Borge concert next week to benefit the proposed Cultural Arts Center.

All 2,150 seats for the “Comedy in Music” concert scheduled for Wednesday at Knott’s Berry Farm’s Good Time Theater has been sold, said foundation Chairwoman Bea Botelho.

“The caliber of the entertainment has a lot to do with the sellout, but we’re just pleased to have our first major fund-raiser be such a success,” she said.

The foundation, formed in 1987 to fund a center for the arts in the city, has a goal of raising $2.5 million for the facility. The city has set aside $800,000 from the sale of property originally proposed for the arts center.

The project will be sponsored by the Buena Park School District and the city, and is now proposed to be built at Buena Park Junior High School.

The city recently awarded a $20,000 contract to study how well the center’s design will fit the needs of both the city and the schools. That study will take place over the summer.

Currently, arts groups--including the Community Theatre, Children’s Theatre, Buena Park Community Chorus and the Art Guild--hold their events in different areas of the city.

“It will be a focal point of the city, a place that will house truly all of the arts,” Botelho said. “I envision that once it is in place, it will encourage more things to happen,” such as music programs for children.

It is significant that the foundation is seeing so much support during these tough economic times, she said, because the arts usually suffer when other basic needs aren’t being fully funded.

“I think people are beginning to realize that these are things necessary to their lives and they are really more a necessity than what they think.”