Biz Beat 1-10-2013

The Fun with Fermentation Festival is from 11 am to 4 pm Saturday, Jan. 12, at the WOW Hall, 291 W. 8th Ave. in Eugene. The fourth annual event is a fundraiser for FOOD for Lane County and the Willamette Valley Sustainable Foods Alliance. Admission is on a sliding scale, $10-$20 per person or $5 with two cans of food. Kids 12 and under are free. The event focuses on the many ways fermentation is used in making foods and drinks. Businesses involved include Coconut Bliss, Cousin Jack’s Pasty Co., Falling Sky Brewing, Grateful Harvest Farm, Herbal Junction, Holy Cow, Hop Valley Brewing, Kombucha Mama, Master Food Preservers, McKenzie Mist, Mountain Rose Herbs, Ninkasi, Oakshire, Premrose Edibles, Pure Peppers, Vanilla Jills, Viva Vegetarian Grill and the local chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation. See www.wvsfalliance.org

Womenspace, the “primary provider of intimate partner violence services” in Lane County, has closed its walk-in advocacy service at its Crisis and Support Center on Pearl Street in Eugene. Domestic violence services will still be provided through the 24-hour Crisis Line. Executive Director Peggy Whalen says she hopes to reinstate walk-in services in the future. She says Womenspace provides services to more than 4,500 adults and children annually, but has seen big cutbacks in both government agency funding and private donations. See www.womenspaceinc.org

Local cycling enthusiasts will be gathering for a bike event at 1 pm Saturday, Jan. 12, at the David Minor Theater, 180 E. 5th Ave. in Eugene. Suggested donation is $10 and all proceeds will go to Trips for Kids-CAT, a mountain bike group for youth. The biking film Premium Rush will be shown and prizes will be given away from REI, Blue Heron Bicycles, Co-Motion Cycles, Rolf Prima, Hutch’s Bicycles, Dianne Davis, LMT, Willamette Mercantile and Pauls’s Bicycle Way of Life.

Local yoga teachers are offering Yoga Day 2013, a day of classes and demonstrations from 9 am to 2 pm Saturday, Jan. 12, at Willamalane Center, 215 W. C St. in Springfield. Suggested donation for the day is $10 and beginners are welcome. Instructors include Justine Halliwill, Christen Bradshaw, Kate Hirst, Erik Lovendahl and Suman Barkus. The event is a benefit for Suman’s brother in Mongolia who was injured in a car accident. See www.taichiyogacenter.com 

Feet First! is a new kind of massage studio in the back of Studio 508 at 5th and Blair in the Whiteaker neighborhood. Michelle Wallace practices Ashiatsu or barefoot massage therapy. She tells us she uses “bars overhead for balance and gravity for pressure, the feet provide broad, even strokes that are therapeutic and relaxing.” Call 543-0290 or find Feet First! on Facebook.

Lord Leebrick Theatre has received a $50,000 grant from the Collins Foundation for its new West Broadway theater downtown. The gift brings the total raised to $2.15 million, close to the fundraising goal of $2.3 million. The new theater will open Jan. 25 with the Pulitzer Prize winning musical Next to Normal. Last fall the theater also got a $10,000 grant from James F & Marion L. Miller Foundation. To help wrap up the campaign, contact Artistic Director Craig Willis at 684-6988 or email craig@lordleebrick.org

The Coalition of Land Trusts has received an unprecedented grant of $4.5 million from the family of John Gray, who died Oct. 19, 2012, according to Joe Moll, executive director of the McKenzie River Trust, one of the beneficiaries of the Gray family’s Yarg Foundation. Gray was a prominent Portland developer and business leader who created the resorts at Salishan, Sunriver and Skamania Lodge, along with the John’s Landing redevelopment in Portland. The foundation plans to invest a total of $10 million over 10 years to support the land trust movement in Oregon. See mckenzieriver.org