Nonprofit profile: Summer events capture Garlic Festival’s spirit

A farm-to-table dinner is planned for Sept. 10 at Gavilan College

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By Marty Cheek

The Gilroy Garlic Festival might be scaled down into a series of small, intimate events, but local people are still having a lot of fun celebrating the stinking rose.

That merriment was evident at Clos LaChance Winery Wednesday, July 13, when about 300 South Valley residents gathered to enjoy fine wine, music and laughter in a summer evening concert fundraiser. The Gilroy Garlic Festival Association and KRTY.COM presented Nashville songwriters Wendell Mobley and Lee Thomas Miller. The duo entertained the guests with stories, jokes, and some of the songs they have written for country music artists including Kenny Chesney, Chris Stapleton and band Rascal Flatts.

The festival association’s second annual Garlic Golf Tournament held June 24 at Gilroy Golf Course was also a fun time for 72 players who spent a day on the course and more than 100 people who enjoyed a garlicky-goodness dinner.

A third fundraiser will feature plenty of great garlic grub. A farm-to-table meal is planned the evening of Sept. 10 at the Gavilan College student center.

“We’re going to have a family-style dinner,” said Jeff Speno, this year’s president of the Garlic Festival Association of the upcoming special dinner. “We’ll have a number of chefs with garlic-themed dishes, and local wines will be provided. We want to keep the festival’s spirit. We’re going to come back.”

The more intimate and locally-focused events help keep the friendly community spirit of the Gilroy Garlic Festival alive in the South Valley, he said.

The past three years have been challenging for the Garlic Festival Association. A mass shooting at the end of the 2019 festival resulted in the deaths of three guests and wounding of 17 other people.

The COVID-19 pandemic prevented any large gatherings in 2020 and 2021. Brian Bowe stepped down as the festival association’s executive director in December 2019.

“There was a thought of shutting everything down when things started happening,” Speno said. “There was a thought that with all these obstacles there’s no way we can come back. The people of the city really wanted something to come back — we really found that out . . . All the volunteers and the association people have been very eager to come back and do something. Everyone stood right up and jumped in to help with everything.”

Because the world-famous Gourmet Alley served as the heart and soul of the festival for decades at the Christmas Hill Park location, the association came up with an idea of putting on a “drive-thru” version.

Held at the Gilroy Presbyterian Church parking lot last summer, it proved a big success with locals lining up in their cars and trucks to pick up tri-tip sandwiches, garlic fries and other beloved items lovingly prepared by volunteers.

“I couldn’t believe the great response for that. It was amazing,” Speno said. “The Gourmet Alley food is what’s most recognizable about the festival and what’s most missed, besides the camaraderie of all the local people.”

The first Gilroy Garlic Festival in August 1979 was a wild success, overwhelming the volunteers as an endless stream of guests passed through the gates. Over the years, it grew in world-wide fame. In its halcyon days, the three-day garlic festival brought in more than 100,000 people a year from throughout the Bay Area, California, the United States and even other countries. The numbers dropped into the 80,000s during the past decade.

The world famous three-day party helped sustain the quality of life for many people through the money raised, a goal Speno wants to continue with the smaller events the association is putting on. More than $12 million in funds raised over 42 years have gone to support South Valley nonprofits and schools and other organizations.

“One of my themes this year is to make sure everybody understands this (festival) is for nonprofits and charities,” he said. “We are giving money back. Before we knew how much money we were going to make this year, we put a dollar amount out to nonprofits regardless of what happens.”

July’s Nashville Songwriters Concert was organized by Denise Buessing, chairperson of the association’s entertainment committee, and Ashley Fellows, assistant chairperson of the entertainment committee.

“I’m just happy we can do it,” Fellows said. “I know we’re in COVID and with everything with COVID it’s been nice to bring people together and be a group again and be able to music events and food and all the things that bring people back together.”

The Gilroy Garlic Festival’s legacy for more than four decades has been to serve to connect people for the greater good, said Kirsten Carr, past president and member of the association’s strategic planning group.

This year’s three fundraisers keep that spirit of the family-friendly festival alive.

“And that’s what we want. We want to be able to keep that feeling so people know we are going to come back,” she said. “Maybe it’ll be different and not what people remember, but it’s going to be a fun festival and this helps build that bridge.”