Setting up the Garlic Festival is like building a small town,
and the first of some 100,000 villagers expected to visit over the
weekend are already waiting in recreational vehicles parked off
site.
Setting up the Garlic Festival is like building a small town, and the first of some 100,000 villagers expected to visit over the weekend are already waiting in recreational vehicles parked off site.
Friday, the nearly 300 volunteers who have spent 12-hour days since Monday erecting tents, wiring trailers, assembling thousands of square feet of wood and rubber flooring, positioning portable toilets, cutting tin roofs, assigning vendor spaces, and receiving – literally – tons of food, will finally be ready to entertain the guests.
“It really is like watching a small town get built, and (Thursday) is when you add the furniture, and (Friday is) when all the people move in,” Garlic Festival President Kirsten Carr said.
Among the army of volunteers she relies on is Tim Beckley, an installer at Home Depot, who arrived at the park by 6:30 a.m. every morning since Monday. Not only that, he chose to draw on his own vacation time at work to volunteer his carpentry skills while his employer helps out with various supplies, he said.
About 6 p.m. Wednesday, Beckley and a colleague, Cheyenne Soza, finished installing one of the last wood floors for a frozen lemonade stand. After screwing two pieces of old plywood wood together with his own drill, Beckley stood up to enjoy the breeze, the evening sun glistening off his sweaty forehead as vacant tents flapped in the wind behind him.
“It’s almost relaxing around this time. The heat does get to you, but now, with this breeze – well, this is just perfect,” Beckley said as he stretched his arms out, his drained Sierra Springs water bottle resting on the wheel well of a nearby tractor. “And it feels really good to give back and see this transformation.”
Carr supervised the final leg of that transformation Thursday, helping to direct incoming artisans and arts and crafts vendors as well as all the produce and fresh meat arriving in droves. Sound technicians also worked on crowning the various stages with speakers and amplifiers that will rock the festival for three days.
“Today is really the last push,” Carr said Thursday.
Beckley has helped with that push since 1980. Over the years, he has done everything from sign painting to beer pouring, and he has helped with set-up since he started working at Home Depot eight years ago, he said. By Sunday, Beckley estimated he will have spent about 100 hours volunteering, something he said didn’t bother his wife because “she knows this is something I enjoy and love to do.” Plus, Beckley, his wife and their 16-year-old daughter will begin an actual vacation Tuesday, when they head up to Clearlake, he said.
“Next week, I’ll rest. This sure does take a lot out of you,” Beckley said, shying away from spotlighting his volunteer efforts when hundreds of others also help assemble the garlic village. “It’s not just us. There are a lot of people who believe in the community and this event.”
Garbage duty’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it. Every year since he was 10, Greg Varela, Gilroy High School’s head wrestling coach, has been offering up his time for Gilroy’s greater good.
“Some of my old coaches crack up laughing when they see me back on garbage duty,” he said. “All those years in high school I spent trying to get out of it. Now I’m back to where I started. Karma’s kicking me in the butt.”
Mindful of his own experience as a high school student on trash duty, he bribes his team with a post-festival barbecue and pool party, he said.
“I threaten them first, then I bribe them,” he laughed.
Good-natured about his festival assignment, Varela looks forward to the weekend festivities as a way to show off Gilroy.
“It’s a great way for the residents of Gilroy to give back,” he said. “It’s our little party. We all take pride in the Garlic Festival.”
This year marks the 22nd year GHS Choral Director Phil Robb has shoveled shrimp and peddled Pepsis, among other miscellaneous duties. His singers are responsible for the thawing and preparation of the festival’s calamari and shrimp and this year they have about 7,500 pounds to tackle, Robb said.
“Back in the good old days,” Robb put in 80 hour work weeks leading up to the festival, he said.
“It’s really easy now compared to how it used to be,” he said. “Now it’s not bad at all.”
Although some students might have an aversion to looking at raw squid, they swallow their distaste for a weekend and pitch in, he said.
“It’s important for kids to be a part of their community,” he said.
While only three other people from Home Depot volunteer before the festival, dozens of employees and their families will don the company’s signature orange aprons and help children throughout the weekend to assemble birdhouses, helicopters, race cars and other wooden toys complements of Home Depot.
The children’s area sits a stone’s throw away from Gourmet Alley, inside of which hundreds of volunteers rush around with steaming pots of sauce and trays of fresh-chopped garnishments, each dipping, dodging, diving and ducking his or her way past each other to reach the assembly lines where fellow volunteers prepare peppersteak sandwiches, scampi, chicken stir fry, garlic sausage, garlic bread and the penne pasta that Beckley loves.
Absent Thursday was the melodious blend of garlic-tinged odors that will emanate from Gourmet Alley. Instead, the subtle smell of grass and the sound of an electronic drill filled the air. The enormous metal garlic bulb that greets visitors when they enter the festival sat unlit, awaiting the opening ceremonies.
“I can’t wait,” Beckley said. “The festival is just wonderful.”
Reporter Sara Suddes contributed to this story.
