PORT ANGELES — Rondo Dodge has a couple of powerful things: hope and friends who make music.
Both rile him up on any given day, but especially this Saturday.
Dodge, known to many as Rondo Barracuda of Good to Go Grocery in Port Angeles, will cohost Rockin’ the Cure, his answer to a nationwide fundraising push for the Alzheimer’s Association.
Rogues’ End, a quintet specializing in Gypsy and Celtic tunes plus pirate chanteys, will start the event at 7:30 p.m. at the Metta Room, 132 E. Front St.; then comes that rock and rhythm and blues trio called the Soul Ducks from 9 p.m. till 1 a.m.
Local performance artist Noxious Oxalis will serve as mistress of ceremonies at the event, which will also have a 50-50 cash raffle, dances with Dodge for a $5 donation and live painting by local artists Craig Dills and Jeanette Painter.
Tickets are $5 for general admission and $10 for Starlight Lounge seating at the Metta Room. In advance, they’re available at Good to Go, 1105 S. Eunice St.; Port Book and News, 104 E. First St.; and the Metta Room. Any remaining will be sold at the door Saturday night.
For Dodge, this is the second consecutive year for Rockin’ the Cure. He is driven by the loss of his mother, Virginia Opal Dodge, to Alzheimer’s disease in February 2013.
“She suffered from a rapid onset of this particularly cruel and altogether heinous disease,” he said.
With her passing, “I now had a cause . . . to do everything possible to help find the cure.
“I want to see the demise of this disease in my lifetime, and there’s been a lot of recent research indicating that just might happen.”
Much of it is done in the private sector, which is where Dodge and the Alzheimer’s Association come in. The organization raises money through walks, events such as Rockin’ the Cure — and from straight donations.
Team Good to Go Grocery’s efforts have gathered more than $6,000 in donations in previous years, and this time, Dodge and his crew hope to top $10,000.
Besides or instead of going to Saturday’s fundraiser, supporters can give directly at act.alz.org; use the “Teams” heading to find Good to Go Grocery. And then there’s Dodge’s own donations: He matches the tips he receives while working Fridays at Good to Go.
“Today’s Tip Jar of Love helped generate $140 for Alzheimer’s research,” he announced via Facebook on a recent Friday.
Merryn Welch, percussionist with Rogues’ End, and Phyllis Rollston, aka singer Phyllis Gale of the Soul Ducks, are also Team Good to Go members, ready to harness their music in service of the cause.
“We’re gonna get your voodoo and your mojo workin,’” Rollston quipped. The Ducks’ set list includes “Tainted Love,” “Stray Cat Strut” and “Hand Jive,” plus some Johnny Cash and Wynona Carr, she promised. The band is giving Saturday’s performance free to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association.
The venue is donated, too: Galen Hammond, owner of the Metta Room and Bar N9ne, has donated the space for Rockin’ the Cure for two consecutive years now.
Dodge is vehement in his gratitude for all of this.
“There are some remarkable people on this planet,” he said, whom “I have the amazingly great fortune to call my friends.”
And after Rockin’, Dodge won’t rest.
He and the team will “start a fever pitch hustle to get the next event on stage in August, which will in no way, shape or form be even remotely like this one,” he said.
This next fundraiser is “Remembrance: A Benefit for Those Who Cannot,” Aug. 15 at the Port Angeles Community Playhouse, 1235 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
It won’t be easy to assemble, Dodge added, “but it will be beautiful.”
