By MICHELLE BEAHM | Staff Writer

Mayor Tim Matthes will be hosting the first Point of Light Award Ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 10.

The award ceremony is slated for 3:30 p.m. at the Port Orchard Marina Park Gazebo and is in honor of people in South Kitsap who are doing good things for the community.

“They’re called Points of Light awards and they’re just a recognition award for these folks that put a lot of energy and time and don’t get a lot of recognition,” Matthes said.

The ceremony will last around two hours and will feature a country swing band called Renagade Train.

Everyone is welcome to attend for free, and food will be available for purchase through the Fathoms o’ Fun Festival hotdog stand.

This is the first ceremony of its kind in Port Orchard and is inspired by the song Points of Light, sung by Randy Travis. Matthes took the ideas from this song and chose six people from the community who deserve to be recognized as Port Orchard’s “Points of Light.” Matthes said he doesn’t want to reveal the recipients of the awards until the ceremony.

“I’m keeping that a secret until the day of the awards,” he said. “They’re people that have met the song’s requirements, in my opinion, and are well-known in the South Kitsap and Port Orchard area.”

Matthes wants to try to have at least a couple of these ceremonies a year in the future and is thinking of December for the next one. In the future, anybody can nominate anyone for the Point of Light award.

“I’ll never run out of Points of Light,” Matthes said. “I’ll run out of time to do this, but I’ll never run out of people to recognize, that do things for the community. That’s the real reason to do this. To recognize people’s contributions to the community, and just to thank them.”

Matthes wants to award people in the spirit of the song he took inspiration from, and says the most inspirational portion of the song is:

There are heroes whose names you never hear,

A dedicated army of quiet volunteers,

Reaching out to feed the hungry,

Reaching out to save the land,

Reaching out to their fellow man.