{"id":473672,"date":"2026-09-24T01:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T01:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/473672\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T01:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T01:20:22","slug":"santa-clara-groups-fundraise-at-art-wine-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/473672\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Clara Groups Fundraise at Art & Wine Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Santa Clara Art and Wine Festival celebrated its 44th anniversary this weekend, welcoming tens of thousands of locals to support community fundraising efforts.<\/p>\n

Central Park opened up to festival attendees at 10 a.m. on Saturday. The event powered through Sunday afternoon and has attracted upward of 60,000 guests in years past. The free event is highly anticipated among community organizations to fundraise and draw attention to their causes.<\/p>\n

The Rotary Club of Santa Clara managed beer and wine sales, which they will calculate later this week and divide across seven nonprofits. These groups include the Santa Clara Police Activities League and the parent-teacher-student association at Kathleen MacDonald High School. Sales in previous years have reached up to $8,000.<\/p>\n

Other nonprofits fundraised for their own causes, independent of the beer and wine sales. Kendra Olson, vice president for the parent-run Wilcox High Music Boosters, spent Saturday afternoon enticing passersby to purchase turtle ice cream sundaes, a longstanding favorite at the festival. The group fills in the gaps for expenses the district cannot pay for, such as unique sheet music written for the jazz band.<\/p>\n

SPONSORED<\/p>\n

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

The Wilcox boosters walked away with $3,000 over the course of the festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping someday to have a winter guard and to support a marching band. That\u2019s our long-term goal,\u201d Olson said. \u201cWe\u2019d love to go back to that, but things slowed down with COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n

The festival is an annual highlight for students \u2014 Olson said student interest to volunteer sometimes exceeds booth capacity \u2014 and artisan vendors alike. This year marks the fourth time Mary Lawrence, of Evolve with Mary, has sold at the Santa Clara event. The city has continually contacted her for events since first applying to work the festival in 2023.<\/p>\n

SPONSORED<\/p>\n

\"57th_SC_Parade_of_Champions_Image.\"\"57th_SC_Parade_of_Champions_Image.\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

In some instances, city employees attempted to recruit the artist as a teacher in Santa Clara \u2014 a tempting offer to Lawrence, who currently teaches across three schools in Oakland.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like Santa Clara really enjoys art, understands art, and they really do buy,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cPeople want to make you feel like you\u2019re wanted and appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some booth organizers felt otherwise. The city designated a free speech area for political and religious groups outside the event\u2019s main festivities. Located next to construction for the George F. Haines International Swim Center, tablers told the Voice the area proved difficult to attract interest from festival attendees.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get a lot of traffic here, so you make the best of it,\u201d said Mike Wiltberger, mayoral candidate for Santa Clara.<\/p>\n

Wiltberger, who offered sodas to his political competitors, said, \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see the people I\u2019m running against. We\u2019re friends still, you know. So it\u2019s kind of like a little party, and it\u2019s a nice day out today. You really can\u2019t complain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Ramirez is a\u00a0California Local News Fellow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Related Posts:
Community Spirit Shines at Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival<\/a>
42nd Annual Art & Wine Festival Draws Thousands<\/a>
2023 Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival a Success<\/a><\/p>\n

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Santa Clara Art and Wine Festival celebrated its 44th anniversary this weekend, welcoming tens of thousands of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[6036,34529,186288,88,90,89,197,186289,2921,2922,123542],"class_list":["post-473672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area-news","tag-central-park","tag-rotary-club","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara","tag-santa-clara-art-and-wine-festival","tag-santa-clara-weekly","tag-silicon-valley-voice","tag-wilcox-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473672","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=473672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}