Friends of WeHo songstress Irene Soderberg have big plans to celebrate her life as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic allows. A GoFundMe fundraiser has been created to help with memorial services and a musical celebration of her life. The entertainer, HIV Advocate, Fairy Godmother of Fundraising, and WeHo resident, passed away on Sunday, May 31st, at Cedars Sinai.
Soderberg has been entertaining for over 30 years. Wherever there was a piano in West Hollywood, she was there singing and cracking jokes. She performed regularly at the Christina Applegate-owned Ruby Rosa and Villa VillaKula back in the 90s (where Fiesta Cantina now sits) and she also entertained at the long gone Don’t Tell Mama piano bar in West Hollywood to name only a few of the venues she performed in throughout West Hollywood.
“It is with unbearable sadness that we confirm that on Sunday, May 31st, Irene Soderberg, Fairy Godmother of unconditional Love and song, passed suddenly in her apartment,” reads the GoFundMe page created by Cindy Kendall and 5 other organizers. “This was such a shock…we all thought we had to much more time with her, and haven’t yet found a way to accept that her voice and her compassion, her wit and her laughter, her creativity and her courage, her JOY and her deep loyalty to and loving appreciation for every detail about every single person she met or sang for, are no longer here with us in the way our hearts counted on… but… it seems so many have already felt Irene surrounding us with her love, her stubborn belief in the best of us…and, of course, with her feathers.
We are opening this GoFundMe to help with Memorial fees and so that we can put together a musical CELEBRATION OF IRENE’S LIFE (Irene style!) in West Hollywood, CA that will give us all the chance to express our love and gratitude for all she was, all she did to help ANYONE who asked, and all she did and DOES for our hearts. Once the the quarantine ends, we will be able to set a date…hoping for end of summer. If there are any remaining funds, they will be also be used to honor Irene’s memory further in other cities, and to donate in her name to the AIDS organizations that she was devoted to helping by volunteering for hundreds of benefits that raised millions of dollars…”
As of the publishing of this article, $4,527 have been raised of the $7,500 goal.
To make a donation to the GoFundMe Memorial Fund for Irene Soderberg, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/memorial-fund-for-irene-soderberg
