The Finnish Heritage Society welcomes you all to our annual Vappu celebrating the spring and Finnish Culture! DJ, Silent Auction, Food, Balloons, Poetry, Theater, Live Music
Kids Arts & Crafts activities table.
DJ Kat will spin Finnish music of all styles from pop to folk.
Traditional Finnish music from
Heikki Koskinen's Pohjolan Pillit:
w/ Kat Eliot,
Rent Romus, Bert Carelli, & Steve Heckman
Poems from the Finnish American perspective!
Free Event Admission
No Host Bar, Light Buffet ($20 General, Kids under 12 Free)
Salads, smoked salmon, cheeses, spreads, pasta, breads, and Finnish berry cakes!
About the Silent Auction:
Our Vappu Silent Auctions have always been wonderfully popular. The highest bidders have left with amazing treasures. Due to the small size of our Finnish community the prices have not reached anywhere near the levels one could expect to pay at Ebay or a popular first class charity or antique store. Our silent auction is a bargain hunter’s dream.
All proceeds from this auction go to our historic Berkeley Finnish Hall. The Hall is in a beautiful shape already, but now we are pushing very hard to be able to make the Hall ADA compliant.
For this year’s silent auction we have already been donated several beautiful Finnish items by Mary Ellen MacMuldren from Riku Ploe-Kaijala’s estate. Carolyn Hunt has also given us many delightful things from Wes Ludeman’s collection.
In case YOU, who are reading this, have some item or items which you would not mind donating to the Berkeley Finnish Hall, and make the highest bidder very happy and appreciative, please contact me, Kirsti Bellows. The items do not have to be Finnish, but they should be in good condition. We do not have space for used clothing or shoes. My email address is kirstikb@yahoo.com, phone 510.527.6160.
Menu:
Fresh herb potato salad
small potatoes with dill, tarragon, basil, parsley with a dijon shallot vinaigrette
Spinach beet root salad with feta and spinach with citrus vinaigrette
Mixed green salad with snap peas, watermelon radishes, pepitas, red onion and a shallot meyer lemon vinaigreete
Orzo pesto pasta salad with celery and currents
Charcuterie platter with assorted cured meats, hard and spreadable cheeses
Homemade gravlax ( brought out staggered so people don't gobble it all up right away!)
Rye and baguette bread and crackers
an assortment of silliä
3 Finnish summer berry cakes with fresh berries and whipping cream
About Vappu:
Vappu is celebrated traditionally on 1 May and marks the end of winter. It is also celebrated as International Labor Day in most places in the world and is one of the biggest festivals of the year in Finland alongside Midsummer's Day and Christmas. Vappu was created in the nineteenth century when engineering students would celebrate and party at midnight on 30 April, while sporting their traditional white caps. This custom has now become widespread across Finland, leading to partying in towns and cities.
Cost: Free admission
Videos featuring musicians playing at this event
A montage of the free music group the Lords of Outland from their live presented as part of The Tenderloin Museum’s Sounds of the Tenderloin live music series at the Tenderloin National Forest in San Francisco July of 2022
Featuring Rent Romus on alto/soprano saxophones, Ray Schaeffer on bass, Anthony Flores on drums, and Philip Everett on