POTSDAM -- The Creative Spirit Art Center will host an event featuring five local bands to benefit the Katya Czerepak Greer Memorial Scholarship for art education students at SUNY Potsdam Friday, Nov. 19 from 5 p.m. to midnight at the Katya Greer Memorial Gallery in the Creative Spirit Art Center, 6 Raymond St.

The cost for the event is $5 per person for the entire evening, with all proceeds benefiting the scholarship fund. Refreshments will be served.

The following musical groups are donating their talent for the event:

Salvatore and Oscar Sarmiento – Spanish guitar and vocals; LocalMotive – Jazz saxophone and percussion; Ten Speed Taxi – Jazz piano, bass and percussion; Northbound – '60s and '70s vocals with accompaniment; and Len Mackey – African rhythm drum ensemble.

The benefit is being organized by Otto Czerepak, Katya's father and member of the Creative Spirit Art Center.

For more information about the event, contact Czerepak at 265-8453.

Katya Czerepak Greer was a 2002 graduate of the SUNY Potsdam Art History Program and an art teacher at Potsdam High School. Sadly, Katya passed away in 2009.

The scholarship fund was started last year by Katya's mentor teacher and close friend, Leslie Strong Sutter.

Sutter, who is the adviser to Potsdam High School's Artistic Congress, worked tirelessly with her students throughout the school year to raise funds in memory of Katya.

SUNY Potsdam art faculty members Caroline Downing and Mark Huff are spearheading the effort to endow the fund to provide an annual scholarship to a student pursuing a degree in art education at the College.

Donations to the fund are welcome and appreciated. Checks should be made payable to the Potsdam College Foundation/Katya Greer Scholarship and may be mailed to the Potsdam College Foundation, SUNY Potsdam, Potsdam, NY 13676 or brought to the Nov. 19 benefit.

Secure on-line donations may be made on the College's web site at https://secure.potsdam.edu/giving.