Community Thanks
DEMS: Food drive a success!
Last week, the Kootenai County Democratic Club and KCDCC Community Outreach Committee put out a call for our annual food drive — and the community answered with an overwhelming response! Because of the incredible generosity of KC Dem members and the local community, in just five hours, during the drive-up/drop-off event, volunteers gathered 1,900 pounds of food (value equal to $2,825!) and $4,400 in cash donations.
These donations of both food and cash equate to many hundreds of meals. Meals that will feed families in our community, including folks who are our friends and neighbors.
These donations come just in time for a lot of local families as the high cost of groceries continues. It’s heartening to see how generous our community is during this non-partisan event. Both the Coeur d’Alene (Community Action Partnership) and Post Falls (now the 3rd Avenue Marketplace) food banks are two of the beneficiaries of the annual food drive, and innumerable families will struggle a little less because of everyone who donated. We love helping our community! Many thanks to all who donated!
CATHY KRAUS
Kootenai Democratic Club President & KCDCC Community Outreach Chair
CDA ARTS AWARDS: Thanks from North Idaho Film Festival
On Wednesday night, Oct. 21 2026, the North Idaho Film Festival (Matt Edwards, Cal Habayeb and I), had the honor of receiving the award for Emerging Arts at Coeur d’Alene’s 30th Annual Arts Awards. It was certainly a joyous and celebratory evening in the company of some of our town’s most creative and accomplished artists and art supporters, alike. To be recognized among them for our growing contribution to our city’s arts culturefelt like an undeserved treat. But one we will humbly accept.
Having just completed our third film festival season, it occurred to me as the night went on that we are already bringing our community together through film in a unique way. In the room with us at the event, we had Duncan Menzies — not only a Coeur d’Alene Arts Commission member, but also the subject of one of our award-winning documentaries in this year’s festival, "A Sheet from Naked." We also had Caden Butera, a very talented local filmmaker, in attendancewith his family and representing his feature film, "Recollection," which not only screened at our 2025 festival, but continued on a festival circuit and received a distribution deal — every independent filmmaker’s dream. We have a story of two local filmmakers, Marie Hunt and Ashley Howard, who first met at our festival in 2024 and later collaborated on a sweet short film, "Take A Leap," that we screened at this year’s fest. That connection came only from opportunities born over a film festival weekend.
We are grateful to be a vehicle, a stepping stone, a calling card for our local film artists. We are grateful to be a destination for filmmakers from across the country. We are grateful to be an organization that brings together film lovers in our community for a fun-filled and fruitful weekend celebrating films of all kinds. To then be recognized by our city for these efforts is a cherry on top, and we are so excited for what the future of the North Idaho Film Festival holds.
Thank you to our incredible team, our volunteers, and thank you to the city of Coeur d’Alene. Thank you to our wonderful community of creative voices and to our generous sponsors for sticking by us as we grow. Already looking forward to next September!
LILYFINN EDWARDS
North Idaho Film Festival Program Director