SEQUIM — The all-volunteer New Dungeness Light Station Association will celebrate 20 years of caring for the lighthouse when the group meets at 1 p.m. Saturday.
The meeting will be at Trinity Methodist Church, 100 S. Blake St.
The public is welcome, and there will be a drawing for a one-week stay at the lighthouse for two adults and a family membership in the association for a year.
Other prizes will include a two-night stay at Point No Point Lighthouse.
A slide show at the meeting will feature activities from 1994 to 2014 at the New Dungeness Lighthouse, located at the tip of 5-mile-long Dungeness Spit in Sequim.
The lighthouse has been in continuous operation, providing navigational aids to ships in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, since its completion in 1857.
Twenty years ago, the Coast Guard transferred responsibility of care and maintenance of the lighthouse, one of the oldest in the Northwest, to the association.
The nonprofit group has staffed the light station 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, thanks to its lighthouse keeper program.
Lighthouse keepers
People from all over the United States can become lighthouse keepers for a week at New Dungeness and be part of the history of the station.
Membership fees, keeper fees, private donations and grants provide funding to operate and maintain the lighthouse.
Volunteers invest about 6,000 hours per year, or the equivalent of about $120,000 in donated labor.
Because of the efforts of the association, the lighthouse is open to the public for free tours. More than 80,000 persons have visited. The lighthouse is surrounded by the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge.
