VIDEO & PHOTOS: Delridge Day 2016!
(Los Mixtecos on the Delridge Day cultural stage – schedule here)
11:34 AM: We’re in the park outside Delridge Community Center in the first hour of this year’s Delridge Day festival, presented by VIEWS, happening until 11 am, with music, cultural performances, giveaways, treats, skateboarding demonstrations and contests, more. Local groups and businesses are here, as are Seattle Police, since the annual “Picnic at the Precinct” is melded into this again this year (police horses and K-9s will be presenting demonstrations).
West Seattle’s own Ellis Brothers (below) are the first musical act – at noon, it’s Widowed Cactus; 1 pm, The Slags; 2 pm, Valerie Cavell.
Get down to Delridge/Genesee and enjoy yourself – the festival runs until 3 pm – more updates to come.
11:50 AM: Be sure to roam around and check out all the giveaways while you’re here. Free water and ice cream (courtesy of the Seattle Police Foundation) in the SPD area on the west side of the festival zone; free backpacks with school supplies inside the community center:
Many of the groups here have tchotchkes – we’ve brought a few leftover WSB-branded ice scrapers from festivals past; you never know when actual wintry weather might return, and it’s a cooling thought here on another summer day going into the 80s. Cool things for sale, too – in the Delridge Day info booth, right next to us, you can buy Delridge Day T-shirts, $10 kids, $20 adults. And don’t miss Davin the emcee at the Cultural Stage!
12:29 PM: So much going on. In the clip above, that’s MC Davin with SPD Officer San Miguel and Pele the K-9 in training.
(The officer informed the emcee, not like Pele the soccer player, but rather, Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire.)
In the shade under a big tree, martial-arts demonstrations with Coach Sonia Sillan and others from Elite Brazilian Jiu-jitsu of Seattle (WSB sponsor), headquartered here in Delridge, just blocks away.
In the field in the center of the festival zone, sack racing for anybody who shows up:
On the music stage, Widowed Cactus is performing:
Chas Redmond from VIEWS, the music coordinator (for this and so many local festivals!), points out that many of the performers are local youth. Meantime, over at the skatepark, mini-contests are getting going. And on the Cultural Stage, the Arabaka Trio is performing:
The wading pool’s open too, if you’re coming with little ones who would like to splash around (stick your toes in too).
1:03 PM: Midway through the festival … if you’re hungry, note that Yummy Box, which bills itself as “Seattle’s #1 Asian fusion food truck,” is here.
So are a tamale vendor and a shave-ice stand. And as we mentioned, you’ll find free ice-cream treats over in the SPD zone. Meantime, on the music stage, The Slags have just started to play.
And come say hi to all the volunteers and organization/agency reps who are here – cool people we know from so many meetings and events – they do a lot for the community, and that includes the festival-coordinating VIEWS folks – consider buying a T-shirt (info above) and/or poster to support the festival.
1:26 PM: Here’s a walk-around of some of the booths here:
On the Cultural Stage right now – Van Lang Vietnamese Cultural School.
1:56 PM: The Cultural Stage also is featuring announcements from time to time, including information from some of the organizations who are here – right now, the Delridge Grocery Coop is talking about its ongoing effort to get to the point where it can open a grocery store; in the meantime, you can catch up with them every Thursday, 4-7 pm, at their farmstand next to the Delridge P-Patch. The West Seattle Democratic Women had the microphone for a while too, talking about their new focus, climate change. Emcee Davin Stedman asked them for recommendations of where to get accurate information online and they said they’ve been adding links to their website.
2:12 PM: We’re into the last hour – it’s warm but there’s lots of shade, in tents and other trees, if you haven’t been here yet. … We’re hearing that Mayor Ed Murray is expected to stop by around 2:30 pm. He visited the festival last year too.
Last act on the Cultural Stage is Dance Brazil:
2:39 PM: The mayor is here now and Pete Spalding of VIEWS, and the Delridge Neighborhood District Council – one of the groups the mayor recently decided to cut off from city support – is asking him to rethink the decision, pointing out that this event is coordinated by people from DNDC and community councils, “the lifeblood of the neighborhood.”
“We’ll work with you, we’ll work with you,” Murray was heard to tell Spalding.
Murray was subsequently seen at the West Seattle Food Bank booth (an organization Spalding long served as a board member), buying a fundraising raffle ticket, according to WSFB’s Judi Yazzolino, who sent the photo below:
2:46 PM: The mayor just offered a few words onstage, where MC Davin urged him to drop the mic, as he had done with SW Precinct Operations Lt. Ron Smith earlier (Lt. Smith really did literally drop the mic). And now the mayor’s back over at the festival info booth, buying a Delridge Day T-shirt.
3 PM: Festival’s over! Thanks to everyone who came to Delridge Day, and a special shoutout to the nice folks who stopped by our table to say hi.
P.S. West Seattle’s next summer festival is Nature Consortium‘s Arts in Nature Festival next weekend at Camp Long.
The first festival in Seattle that is dedicated to learning and sharing the cultural expressions from Central America, the Festival Centroamericano, will bring together members of the various Seattle Neighborhoods that are from Central America or have family from the seven Central American countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama).
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