The Coupeville Arts & Crafts festival is expected to hit $1 million in funds raised over the lifetime of the event.

The money raised goes to community grants and scholarships for Coupeville students.

The Coupeville Festival Association is the nonprofit organization that plans and facilitates the weekend festival every August.

It collects booth fees and a percentage of vendors’ profits from the weekend and then donates that money to groups in the community.

The Coupeville Festival Association reported that it had raised and given out well over $900,000 through 2015.

Carol Moliter, current president of the association, said she believes it will reach the $1 million milestone once the money from this year is counted.

“We can say we’re breaking a million with this festival,” she said.

“We don’t have a bunch of corporations dumping a lot of money in here,” Moliter said.

“We’re honoring the volunteers of the past because they truly did [the festival] on their own,” she said

The first donations on record were in 1969 and went to the Town of Coupeville for lighting for Front Street and for the purchase of four garbage cans.

Since then, the festival has supported a variety of groups in the community such as field trips for local schools to places like the Seattle Children’s Theater, the town’s Memorial Day parade and college scholarships for local high school graduates.

The festival also helped to pay for less visible items, like supplies for the public restroom, cameras for Coupeville Elementary School and a printer for the Coupeville Arts Center.

Once the sun came out after last Saturday’s thunderstorm, festival-goers went back to shopping at the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival. Photo by Emily Gilbert/Whidbey News Group.

Flowers by glass artist Rob Adamson of Langley sit on display Saturday at the Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival. Photo by Emily Gilbert/Whidbey News Group