Like birthdays and holidays, a Micah and The Loose Threads performance comes but once a year.

Micah Gursky, lifelong Tamaqua resident, and his band will perform at the 10th Tamaqua Community Arts Center Big Benefit Concert, set for 7 p.m. Friday at the Pine Street venue.

Started in 2015, the concert showcases the center and raises operational support funding.

“This year, we sold out a week ago and we’ve raised over $40,000 in ticket sales and sponsorships,” said Gursky, director of business development and government relations for St. Luke’s University Health Network.

“For many people,” he continued, “the Tamaqua Arts Center is the first time they sing, act or dance on stage, or the first time they paint or throw clay. The Big Benefit Concert is a great way to raise funds to support the center.”

Gursky, who manages a small rural dental clinic in Tamaqua, also serves as executive director of the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership. The latter purchased the former church building at 125 Pine Street in 2011; the property reopened as an arts center in 2012.

Though lacking musical experience, Gursky - born in Taiwan when his father was in the Air Force - started Micah and The Loose Threads as a way to raise funds for the center. The band, in which he sings, plays covers of members’ favorite rock, country and blues songs.

“We’re not a band that plays together other than this one night,” said Gursky, a 1991 Tamaqua Area High School graduate. “Each year, the guests and band members are a little different.”

The group, he added, tries “to feature a performer from the arts center - perhaps someone who takes lessons or performs in community theater at the center - to highlight what the center does for our community.”

The Loose Threads name, Gursky explained, “reflects that looseness and is a tip of the hat to The Stitch,” the center’s performance space.

This year’s Loose Threads lineup includes two individuals with whom Gursky works at St. Luke’s: Ron Feltenberger on guitar and banjo, and Dr. Greg Dobash on guitar and vocals.

Feltenberger serves as facilities director at St. Luke’s Hospital’s Miners, Lehighton and Carbon campuses, while Dobash serves as assistant director of St. Luke’s Rural Family Medicine Residency program.

Rounding out the lineup: Miles Coursen and son Owen, Johnny Nigrelli, Traci Wehbe, Amaris Means, Suzanne Johns, Grant Johns and Bri Snyder. The concert will also feature guests Lexi Feltenberger, Zac Yenser, Chris Morrison, Aimee Hegedus and Alicen Hull.

In past years, guests have included: Bill Moyer, current president of St. Luke’s Allentown Campus; State Sen. Dave Argall; Larry Wittig, Tamaqua School Board president; Tamaqua Mayor Nathan Gerace; and Lisa Scheller, local businesswoman and philanthropist.

Though Gursky and his band perform just once a year, “for a large enough donation, we’d consider doing another show. Naming rights to the center is a $1.2 million gift. I think we’d do a special show for that donor. We’d write a song and they can even pick my wardrobe.”

On the subject of writing songs, a $10,000 sponsorship level includes an original song written and performed live at the Big Benefit Concert.

“The first few years, no one took us up on that offer,” Gursky said. “So I wrote a song called ‘Micah Micah Micah,’ and we’ve done originals for donors and some just for fun.”

Aside from the blues-funk style of “Micah Micah Micah,” the band’s original songs include “Lisa’s Song,” a 1970s-pop-inspired track written for Scheller.

Looking to the benefit concert and beyond, the band’s goals, Gursky said, “are to highlight what the center does, give a good show and to find that special person who wants to support the arts center with that $1.2 million gift.”

Raising funds to support the center, Gursky said, remains the key reason Micah and The Loose Threads take the stage annually at the Big Benefit Concert.

“It’s special to do it in a way that creates relationships and connections with each other, the sponsors, and the arts centers staff and volunteers. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and we have a lot of fun raising a lot of money for the center.”

When Gursky was a youth in Tamaqua, he said, “there was no art center. Now, there’s a generation growing up in Tamaqua who will never know the community without an arts center.

“To help make that happen,” Gursky continued,” by coming out one night a year and performing with such generous and talented people is a joy.”