Vashon’s 2017 unofficial mayor race is off to an early start as islander Colleen Carette — nicknamed Tinker Bell by the children she works with at a camp for children with cancer — has announced her entrance into the annual race.

The mayoral race is a long-standing Vashon tradition organized by the chamber of commerce. Members of the community participate in a whimsical election and choose a platform on which to run by choosing a nonprofit to raise money for. Votes are cast via donations to candidates. The person who raises the most money by the summer’s Strawberry Festival wins the title.

Besides being a mayoral candidate and Tinker Bell at Vashon’s Camp Goodtimes, Carette is a physician’s assistant at the University of Puget Sound’s student clinic. In November, she helped to save the life of islander and neighbor John Burke when he had a heart attack while walking onto the north-end ferry.

She is now setting her sights on the Interfaith Council to Prevent Homelessness (IFCH). According to her candidate statement, she said it was difficult to pick just one of Vashon’s 45 nonprofits to raise money for. She said she chose IFCH because she was moved by how “the number of people living without any shelter, no place to call home, cold and hungry has grown each year without an end in sight.”

“This trend can take another direction,” she said in the statement. “The problem is no doubt complex but the solution is simple. For us islanders that simple action is to donate money to the IFCH and bring awareness to this completely volunteer organization that is doing tremendous good medically, physically, emotionally and spiritually.”

Islanders can make donations by dropping money in “ballot boxes” at island businesses, mailing a check with “Tinker Bell for Mayor” on the memo line to IFCH P.O. Box 330 Vashon, WA 98070.

Donations will be accepted up until the announcement of the new mayor during Strawberry Festival in July.

Vashon Maury Island Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jim Marsh stresses every year that the election is all about the nonprofits and having fun for a worthy cause.

Run for unofficial mayor

Those interested in joining the race for Vashon’s 2017-18 unofficial mayor have until June 1 to declare.

Candidates must select an island nonprofit to fundraise for, submit a letter from the organization giving permission to fundraise and then declare their run to the chamber and newspapers.

See vashonchamber.com for more information.