(Arnolds Park)—An area businesswoman is embarking on a campaign to help protect the Iowa Great Lakes. Deidre Rosenboom says she and her late husband came up with the “Keep Okoboji Blue” concept. Rosenboom says the goal is to raise a million dollars to assist the Cleanwater Alliance and similar groups in preserving water quality of the Iowa Great Lakes…(click here for comment.) “That’s what this is all about, is bringing the community together, putting our voice behind clean water, raising a million dollars so next year John Wills with his plan can help secure the lakes and the many years, I would even say 4,000 years from now, there will be money for clean water. Will they even exist 4,000 years from now? I say not without clean water. We need clean water. It’s so vital to our quality of life and our survival.”
Rosenboom says a concert July 20th at Preservation Plaza will serve as a major fundraiser, along with a VIP tent that will be in place that evening…(click here for comment.) “In the tent we’ll have local beer tasting from West O Brew Beer and Okoboji Brewing Company. We also have ice coffee and desserts from Prairie Chick, some appetizers and cash bar, Keep Okoboji Blue merchandise, and we’ll have a Keep Okoboji Blue paddleboard donated by Mau Marine. This is the limited, only one paddleboard in the area and that’ll be a live auction item so hopefully that will be a good draw for everybody. We’ll also have some clean water speakers. We have West O coming in, Matt, he’ll be speaking about water, landscape architecture and beer and how it’s all connected. So there’s some fun stuff. It’s one of the first events like this when it comes to the green space and the concert and tent. And we’d like it to become a pretty good success. We’d like to see this become an annual event, we hope.”
Rosenboom says the concert will feature two different bands…(click here for comment.) “Enemy Plains used to come from the area, they’re natives, are the Call family and Joe Gamble. They were Pictures of Then and redid their sound and became Enemy Plains. Just a real hip electronic sound. I really love it. Then we have Bright Giant, who’s a little more traditional rock starting the show.”
Tickets for the VIP tent for the July 20th, along with more information about “Keep Okoboji Blue” can be obtained by contacting Rosenboom at the Wine Bar on the strip in Arnolds Park.
