As President of the 2014 Gilroy Garlic Festival, I take great pride in representing the community of Gilroy and the 4,000-plus volunteers who come together every year to host this amazing event for visitors from all over the world.
Like many longtime Gilroy residents, the Garlic Festival is an important part of my own personal history. I have great memories of attending the Festival when I was just a kid. I first started volunteering in the late 1990s when my daughters were in elementary school. One of my first jobs was working in Information, wearing the bright yellow “ASK ME” vests and helping to greet visitors and answer their questions. I loved meeting people from different places and making sure they enjoyed their trip to the Garlic Festival.
Later, when one of my daughters joined the Gilroy High School choir, I joined the “Squid Patrol” in Gourmet Alley, defrosting calamari and getting it ready for the Pyro Chef flame-ups. As many of you probably know from experience, once you start working in the Alley, it’s hard to leave! As the years went by, I helped chop vegetables, worked in personnel and managed ingredients. Next thing I knew, I had been recruited to serve as assistant chair of Gourmet Alley. After serving as co-chair with Mike Davis, I was elected to the Board of Directors and am now here as your 2014 President.
It’s been quite a journey-and I’ve loved every minute of it. I am truly humbled to be a part of this wonderful community, where everyone pitches in and does their part-right down to the Gilroy Gators swim team kids who do such a fantastic job picking up the trash every evening after the Festival guests have gone home.
Thanks to the dedication of these 4,000 plus volunteers, the Gilroy Garlic Festival has raised more than $10 million dollars for local schools, sports teams, charities and nonprofit organizations. You may remember the sign that we display at the main entrance (next to the eternal garlic flame) that shows the total amount raised since the first Festival back in 1979. It’s become part of our tradition to update the numbers on the sign every year with the new total. Well, now that we’ve gone over $10 million, we had to build a new sign to accommodate the extra digit. That’s a huge milestone worth celebrating!
In addition to the money that’s distributed to nonprofit groups every year, the Gilroy Garlic Festival has also contributed a number of improvements that benefit residents all year long, including the gorgeous new amphitheater, additional trees and the new Mulberry Picnic Area at Christmas Hill Park.
Everyone who has ever volunteered at the Garlic Festival should be proud of what we have contributed by coming together and working hard to benefit our community. It’s a lot of work, of course, but it’s also a lot of fun.
We put on one heck of a party for more than 100,000 visitors every year, and we look forward to doing it again this weekend. Hope to see you all here!
—Vito Mercado, President
2014 Gilroy Garlic Festival
