Fly with the Dragonflies

FLY WITH THE DRAGONFLIES AT ANNUAL DRAGONFLY GALA

Release from Pat Murkland, Dorothy Ramon Learning Center

The annual Dragonfly Gala will celebrate Southern California’s Native American cultures on Aug. 12 with delicious foods, traditional music, displays, and arts.

The community event draws several hundred people from all walks of life each year to Morongo Community Center, 13000 Malki Rd., Morongo Reservation. All proceeds benefit the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, Inc., which saves and shares Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts, according to organizers.

The ultimate banquet food
This is no ordinary banquet. Once again, Daniel McCarthy and Cadie McCarthy will lead the crew preparing and serving a buffet of authentic California cuisine — modern dishes incorporating some traditional Native foods — along with good, old-fashioned BBQ turkey, pit-roasted beef and other comfort foods. The menu includes: acorn gravy, pinto beans, prickly pear cacti with yucca blossoms and purslane, calabacitas (squash dish), handmade tortillas and rolls, fresh salsa and chips, wild greens salad, and to drink, choices that include prickly pear fruit punch. The desserts always go fast, especially the sourdough pineapple upside-down cake, native chia pops, and mesquite cookies.

Community activities

The event from 4 to 8 p.m. offers Native American cultural displays and exhibits, flute music and traditional bird singing and dancing, and opportunities to bid in the Gala’s famed silent auction, which offers eclectic and beautiful dragonfly and Native items. This year, Gala participants are encouraged to bring a dragonfly (handmade, art, what have you) and take home a dragonfly in the first Community Dragonfly Exchange. Please join the fun! Participants also will have the opportunity to make dragonflies at the event, and learn a Native American song about dragonflies.

A Gala highlight is the 2017 Dragonfly Award, offered by Dorothy Ramon Learning Center for soaring achievements in saving and sharing Native American cultures. This year, Marigold Linton of Morongo and Joely Proudfit, a descendant of the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians, will each be honored for their ground-breaking and pioneering leadership in education.

Please RSVP so organizers can serve you: 951.849.7736, or email, info@dorothyramon.org.

Tickets are $50 each; tables are $1,000, $2,000, $3,000. Special $500 menu sponsorship (you receive 4 tickets) helps support the banquet menu and continue this delicious tradition.

For more information: www.dorothyramon.blogspot.com