{"id":326267,"date":"2026-05-21T15:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/326267\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T15:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:05:13","slug":"u-s-s-250th-birthday-celebrated-at-66th-strawberry-festival-orange-county-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/326267\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S.\u2019s 250th birthday celebrated at 66th Strawberry Festival \u2013 ORANGE COUNTY TRIBUNE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

STEVE SANDERS, president of the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival Associaiton (Tribune photo).<\/p>\n

By Jim Tortolano
Orange County Tribune<\/p>\n

Steve Sanders hasn\u2019t been around the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival since it\u2019 was founded but it might be easy to jump to that conclusion.<\/p>\n

Sanders, 72, a retired police lieutenant and a graduate of Santiago High School, is doing his second tour of duty as president of the Festival Association, that all-volunteer organization that\u2019s kept the event going since its inception in 1958 (or 59), depending on who\u2019s doing the counting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After service as a security police officer in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam Era, he came to Orange County and Garden Grove by way of the Merced County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Once with the GGPD, he worked with the Festival Association to assess possible threats to the event, which annually attracts as many as 250,000 people to the four-day celebration over the Memorial Day weekend.
\u201cI was able to see what they did and the funds they raised and what they did for the common good,\u201d said Sanders. \u201cI started volunteering in 1981.\u201d<\/p>\n

He points out that all 21 of the directors who comprise the leadership of the Association are volunteers and not paid. \u201cEverything we raise goes back into the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only does the festival give grants to non-profit organizations annually \u2013 the most recent festival in 2025 donated almost $149,000 \u2013 but the event also helps non-profits who sponsor booths at the festival to raise money for their sports teams, band boosters, civic organizations and more.<\/p>\n

How has the event managed to prosper through two-thirds of a century despite all the changes that society has gone through?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a family-based event,\u201d said Sanders. \u201cWe do what we can to make it fun and affordable for everyone. You don\u2019t have to buy anything at all. You can buy a wristband for the rides, but you can also just walk around and enjoy it.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome out and have some fun and support the non-profits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STEVE SANDERS, president of the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival Associaiton (Tribune photo). By Jim TortolanoOrange County Tribune Steve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-326267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}