Event created after Rudy Melone read news story about French soup festival

Published in the July 27-August 10, 2016 issue of Gilroy Life

By Nicholas Preciado and Marty Cheek

Garlic-Festival-Association

Photo courtesy Gilroy Garlic Festival Association Members of the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association gather for a group photo after last year’s festival.

As this year’s board president of the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association, the nonprofit which puts on the world’s most famous culinary gathering, Dave Reynolds sees the annual event as key to bringing people together from throughout the South Valley. For him personally, volunteering time and energy to put on the festival is a family affair.

Reynolds, a wealth manager at JPMorgan Chase Bank, moved to California from Boston 20 years ago and found himself helping out with the garlic festival due to his family’s involvement.

“My wife (Paula) and her family were involved in different committees,” he said. “I just naturally started volunteering as a member of the community.”

Reynolds’ three daughters, Isabelle, Abby, and Bridget, volunteer at the festival as well.

“That’s the way it operates,” he said. “Helping and working at the festival gets in your blood.”

This year marks the 38th annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, which takes place at Christmas Hill Park July 29-31. The event brings about 95,000 people to the South Valley. The members of the festival association work year-round to put on the event. The group is made up mostly of volunteers.

The festival and its association got its start in what might seem a banal manner in 1978 when Dr. Rudy Melone, then the president of Gavilan Community College, read in a newspaper story about a small town in France which annually hosted 80,000 people at its garlic soup festival. The town of Arleux even claimed the “Garlic Capital of the World” title. Melone sensed that Gilroy needed a similar event to build up community pride in its garlic industry and also raise money for charity causes. He approached a few friends at the Gilroy Rotary Club who told him it was a “crazy idea.”

“There would be no Gilroy Garlic Festival without Rudy” said festival co-founder Don Christopher, president of Christopher Ranch Garlic, in a press release. “The event was his idea and he was the spark that made everything go.”

Melone approached Christopher as well as his friend Val Filice to chat about putting on the Gilroy Garlic Festival. In the summer of 1979 on farm land near Bloomfield Road, the first festival was launched. Organizers projected a first-year attendance of 5,000. They were shocked when 15,000 garlic lovers showed up. Soon after that first year’s overwhelming success, organizers realized that there was a need to create the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association to put on the event every year.

Nearly four decades later, the festival is regarded as “the preeminent food festival in America” and even has international fame, with more than three million people attending over the years. Each year, about 4,000 volunteers from about 125 nonprofits in Gilroy, San Martin, Morgan Hill and Hollister participate in putting it on. More than $10.6 million for worthy causes has been raised throughout the festival’s history.

“We raise the money, cover expenses, and then that pot of money goes to charity,” Reynolds said.

As it has grown, organizers have made changes to serve its mission of raising money for charities. A somewhat controversial decision to charge for parking this year was made to help offset transportation costs for busing attendees because many acres of parking space were lost due to home development near Christmas Hill Park, Reynolds said. The association is expecting to spend $200,000 to $300,000 in shuttle expenses this year.

“We’d rather not charge for parking, but based on the cost of busing 100,000 people, we really had no choice,” Reynolds said. “We’ve been dealing with this financially for a couple years now. So when you’re raising $250,000 to $350,000 a year for charity, and there’s a new $200,000 to $300,000 expense, you can see where we have no money to pay for the volunteers.”

Participating nonprofits need to be local because of the demand for volunteers, with people coming from throughout the South Valley and San Benito County region.

Operating the association as a 501(c)3 nonprofit is an opportunity for businesses and individuals to donate money to write off from their taxes whether it’s from an endowment standpoint or it’s just the charitable giving that they’re contributing to the garlic festival, Reynolds said.

In addition to giving money to nonprofit groups, the association also gives money back to the community through sponsorships with local businesses.

“Historically, we’ve put aside that money to try to give back to the community, whether it’s planting trees or redoing the electrical, gas and plumbing at Christmas Hill Park,” Reynolds said. “We benefit, of course, because it makes putting on the festival easier, But the community uses that space as well.”

The festival association also gets substantial financial and in-kind support from the local community’s businesses and individuals to put the festival each year, Reynolds said.

“Not only do individuals working help out, but the business community gives us a significant amount of help,” he said.

Gilroy Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mark Turner said the festival benefits the entire southern Santa Clara County not only financially with tourism revenue but also by instilling a pride in the region’s longtime farming heritage.

“When you’re down at the festival, you’re pouring beer or you’re selling tickets, you see your family and friends coming through,” Turner said. “People who work these four-hour shifts, they have a great time, and they’re contributing not only to the mission of the chamber, but to the community at large.”

By the Numbers

95,000 — estimated attendance
4,000 — number of volunteers
125 — nonprofits from Gilroy, San Martin, Morgan Hill and Hollister participate
$10.6 million — amount raised throughout the festival’s history.

Marty Cheek