PORT ANGELES — An anonymous donor has stepped forward with a $50,000 donation to help the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center fund its operations through 2012, arts center and city officials said this morning.

Linda Crow, president of the arts center foundation, said the person, a Port Angeles resident, stepped forward after a City Council work session Tuesday at which council members mulled options for bridging a $52,000 funding gap for the arts center.

Arts center officials had asked the city to fill in the gap to fund the center’s executive director position through the end of the year.

The donor participates in the facility’s “planned giving” fundraising program and decided to make the donation this year instead of 2013, Crow said.

The donor requested anonymity because “they wanted it to be about the giving and the community,” Crow said.

Crow said she was “elated” when the person called her early Wednesday morning to inform her about the donation.

The donation will allow the city to move forward with hiring an arts center director to replace Jake Seniuk, who is retiring, and whose last day is today, interim City Manager Dan McKeen said.