GILROY
– Jim Habing served as president of the Gilroy Garlic Festival
in a year when many people expected the world to end.
The year 2000 was fraught with worry about the infamous Y2K
computer bug as well as news that people were selling their homes
and possessions and moving to the wilderness as the odometer of
history rolled over three zeros.
GILROY – Jim Habing served as president of the Gilroy Garlic Festival in a year when many people expected the world to end.
The year 2000 was fraught with worry about the infamous Y2K computer bug as well as news that people were selling their homes and possessions and moving to the wilderness as the odometer of history rolled over three zeros. Well, the Y2K bug wasn’t the disaster scenario it was hyped up to be, and hopes for Armageddon were dashed.
And the festival went on that year just as planned.
Habing, who is a co-owner of Habing Family Funeral Home in Gilroy, has served as a volunteer for the festival during every year of its existence. In the late 1980s, he got involved in the festival’s association, initially serving on the utilities committee which deals with setting up electricity, fencing, water and those all-important toilets.
“We had the best Porta-potties in the festival that year,” he said with a chuckle.
He served as assistant chair for two years, a chair for another two years, and found himself on the board for one year.
“Then I tried out for president and I got it,” he said. “It was a time in my life when I thought I could do a lot for the festival. I had the time and the energy and I think I got the threefold of experience back from the festival.”
Serving as president helped him to hone his skills in public speaking, running meetings, and doing interviews on TV and radio, he said.
“I learned this the year I was the president, I had a really good relationship with the press,” he said.
The Y2K Garlic Festival was called “the Year of the Volunteer,” he said.
That year, to highlight the volunteers’ contribution to to festival’s success, commemorative pins were given to all the volunteers.
Habing served at a time when the festival faced some necessary changes, he said.
“The festival had gone through some changes the prior year before me,” he said. “There was some tough financial cuts we had to do the years before that.”
Among other changes were the hospitality suite was taken out of Gourmet Alley and put in another area.
One of the reasons the festival brings in people year after year is that the volunteers work hard but also have a good time putting it together, Habing believes.
“The festival thrives on being a free-spirited and fun-loving atmosphere,” he said. “It gets tweaked a little bit here and there, for the better hopefully. That’s the cool thing about how it works. You’re president for a while and then you’re gone. You get fresh blood in it and fresh energy and that’s what keeps it going.”
Habing’s wife Andrea has also volunteered her time, alternating each year with him on serving on the board. She has also been the chair of the program committee.
“I also try to get my kids involved as much as I can,” he said. “They’re a little younger.”
Gilroy should feel proud of its world-famous festival because it serves to tie the community together, he said. Well-known events including the Rose Bowl and the Kentucky Derby have looked at the Garlic Festival as a blueprint on which to model their volunteer structures, he said.
“I hope the people of Gilroy don’t take it for granted. … There are a lot of communities out there that would give a lot to have a festival like the Garlic Festival in their community,” he said. “If you asked the forefathers if we would have made it this far, they would have thought you were smoking something.”
