In its biggest fundraiser of the year – one always held the first weekend in June – the St. Clare School and Parish on Washington Street in Santa Clara, held its annual St. Clare Community Festiv’all on May 30-June 1.
Featuring Friday night food trucks, the much-loved tri-tip dinner on Saturday evening and the “famous” chicken barbecue on Sunday afternoon, over 2,000 visitors attend the event each year. In addition to the food, including various ethnic flavors (Spanish, Mandarin, Portuguese and Italian), the festiv’all gives parish members the chance to clean out their garages and visitors the opportunity to score great bargains on the items donated.
While most families chose to ride rides like The Super Sizzler and Frog Hopper, or slide down the giant Fun Slide, others kicked back in the shaded stage area and enjoyed the entertainment. On Friday, Dan the DJ and Monkey took the stage, while Saturday visitors saw Dance Affair, Ellen and Diego, Nothin’ But Fun and Big Mike and the Hartbeats. Tiana Najeeb-Brush, Mahal Tran, Yo-Yo Jo, Nothin’ But Fun and the Michael Osborn Band performed on Sunday, keeping festiv’all-goers entertained from the afternoon into the evening.
“Something that we have that’s new is that we have the Knights of Columbus who have a booth and we actually have brought back YLI, which is the Young Ladies’ Institute at St. Clare, and they’re doing a cake walk,” said Stacey Thorn, one of the event organizers. “So that’s new. A long time ago they had that, but they haven’t had that for many years. So that’s new and exciting.”
As with years past, each class sponsored a booth of games, food or activities, with the class of 2018 running the most popular booth of all – Café E’Clare, a dessert bar of professional-looking sweets made by the class’ students and parents.
“This year our class booths are even bigger and better … they’ve gotten more intricate,” said Thorn. “So, same as last year, each grade makes a booth and then they actually work the booth and the kids have a lot of fun with that.”
All of the funds raised will go to support the school and parish, with the majority of the money going to fix infrastructure. Visit www.stclareparish.org for more information.