GILROY
– The blood, sweat and tears of thousands of South County
volunteers at this year’s Gilroy Garlic Festival will once again
produce $236,000 for local organizations.
GILROY – The blood, sweat and tears of thousands of South County volunteers at this year’s Gilroy Garlic Festival will once again produce $236,000 for local organizations.
While the 24th Annual Garlic Festival will boast a revenue increase of nearly $36,000 over last year’s event, increases in expenses will gobble up the extra funds. Regardless, the Festival’s board decided to set the reward for charity at the same amount as last year, said Joann Kessler, the festival association’s assistant executive director.
“That’s what the board decided to do, because there were some expenses that were just a cost of doing business and they wanted to pay the same amount of money,” Kessler said. “They thought that was important.”
The festival’s 4,000 volunteers logged a total of 43,447 hours this year, up roughly 2,000 hours over 2001’s festival. That figures to about $5.43 an hour for labor by the nonprofit and community organizations that did everything from produce Gourmet Alley’s famous calamari flame-ups to help with parking.
The big winners included the Gilroy Elks Lodge No. 1567, which raked in $16,413 for its efforts, and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which netted $14,293. The Elks were heavily involved in transportation and preparation of Gourmet Alley’s famed pepper steak sandwiches and pasta con pesto, while the Hispanic Chamber was mainly responsible for feeding festival volunteers.
2002 Festival President Kurt Chacon said Thursday he wishes the contribution could be a lot more.
“Honestly, I was disappointed,” he said. “It’s a lot of hard work – a lot of people do a lot of work. With that much energy and good people you would think you could generate more.
“That’s the next step, to figure out how to do that.”
Although the nonprofit festival association’s books for the fiscal year won’t close until Oct. 30, so far the 24th Annual Garlic Festival’s yearly revenues are up by almost 2 percent, or $36,000, over last year’s festival-year total. Meanwhile, this year’s expenses rose by almost 9 percent, or $162,402, over last year’s total.
Total revenue for this year so far is $1,959,626, while expenses are at $1,824,000, with some bills still expected.
“Expenses this year were up over last year, and earnings were up also, but unfortunately expenses were up more than the earnings,” Chacon said.
The festival faced some new costs this year. Grading and earth work for a new upper parking lot was a major expense, as was maintaining it during the festival itself. The festival spent $47,000 to pay for water trucks meant to keep dust down in the lot, Kessler said.
Security costs also rose. While the festival association usually receives a bill from the California Highway Patrol a year late, this year the CHP sent its bills for both 2001 and 2002 festivals, Kessler said – a total of about $78,000.
Caltrans also began charging for some services this year that it hasn’t in years past, Chacon said, a move he guesses is a function of the times with the slumping economy.
“As everything gets tight, those (free) things go away,” he said.
On the positive side, Gourmet Alley has been able to produce a big cut in expenses. Total revenues for the alley, which was chaired by Hugh Davis, came in at about $450,000 – a boost of $8,000 over last year – while expenses were down $41,000, Kessler said.
“It’s great,” Chacon said. “That’s very substantial. Their task this year was attacking that.”
Mercantile sales were also a strong point. The association’s retail revenues – which range from official merchandise such as wine glasses and “Herbie” the garlic doll bobbleheads to bottled water – increased by a net of $15,000. Jodi Heinzen was mercantile chairwoman.
While the festival probably won’t add to its reserves, it won’t have to tap them either, Kessler said.
This year’s festival cruised into the event’s silver anniversary bash with few hitches. Organizers, vendors and patrons alike praised the nearly perfect weather and several new features, including the split of arts and crafts on both sides of the park to more shade tents and an expanded children’s area. Arrests and police contacts were the lowest ever, according to Gilroy Police.
Total attendance for the three-day event was 125,409, a drop of about 2,300 over last year’s count but right in line with recent traditional totals.
“I don’t think there’s anybody I’ve talked to that hasn’t been extremely pleased with the 2002 festival,” Kessler said. “The whole ambiance was wonderful, and it was a very mellow, nice event. The weather was perfect and some of the changes enhanced the feel of the park.”
The festival has earned more than $4.5 million for charity organizations over its 24-year history, and has donated about $1 million for improvements at Christmas Hill Park.
