Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "labor day weekend"

Battle at the Capital

2011-09-08T04:12:23Z

The second annual Battle at the Capital football competition took place at Del Oro High School’s Golden Eagle Stadium over Labor Day weekend. Along with a series of football games, the event honored those who have given their lives in the armed forces. Proceeds from the event will benefit wounded veterans.

The event has been so successful that next year’s will take place in both Northern and Southern California. Should the growth continue, organizers are shaping expansion plans that may spread across the United States.

The Battle at the Capital kicked off with a golf tournament on Aug. 29 at Sun City Lincoln Hills. The Wounded Veteran tournament was a successful fundraiser.

The Del Oro High freshmen and J.V. football teams faced Westlake High on Friday night. The Armed Services/Pat Tillman Memorial game had Del Oro going against San Jose’s Leland High in a varsity game.

Several vendors set up along the perimeter of a baseball field along the way to the stadium. Booths representing all areas of military service were set up to disseminate information and answer any questions.

A memorial was erected toward the center of the field, including a Traveling Tribute Wall. The Military Expo included exhibits of every branch of our nation’s armed forces and displays of military vehicles.

The four games on Saturday featured Capital Christian against Scotts Valley, Bear River against Hug (Reno), Pleasant Grove against Lincoln (Stockton). The Remembrance and Wounded Veteran Memorial game featured Del Oro against Westlake.

Sunday’s games featured two Pop Warner games in the “midgets”category: 11- to 14-year-olds. In the first midgets game, the Del Campo Junior Cougars led the game from start to finish, beating the Granite Bay Junior Grizzlies.

The second game pitted the Woodland Junior Wolves against the Roseville Junior Tigers. The game started off fairly evenly, and during the first quarter the score was Woodland 6 and Roseville 8. Things did not get better for Woodland as Roseville’s offensive machine took over.

Woodland played their hearts out, but injuries and the small size of their squad, in terms of the number of players, prevented them from making substitutions as the game went on. Exhausted and weary, Woodland was soundly defeated.

After each game, a player from each team received the Character Award for exhibiting outstanding character and sportsmanship. It was great to see these young kids play. Many of these players will move to high school football next year.

The audience filled up the stands in anticipation of the Placer County Sheriff Guns going up against the Nevada County Sheriff Posse in the Battle of the Badges.

Prior to the game, the U.S. Army Silver Wings Jump Team amazed the audience with their skills. The team consisted of three jumpers who parachuted from a Coast Guard plane carrier.

The Guns, considered the home team, had a great crowd on their side of the field. Both teams seemed courteous toward each other, in some cases helping each other up off the ground.

The game was sort of sloppy at the beginning as both teams fumbled and lost possession, but Placer County took control and led 18-0 by halftime. During the break, the audience was treated to a performance by the Lad Lions, the Mountain Lions’ cheerleading squad, and a K-9 unit demonstration.

The Guns maintained their energy in the second half for a final score of 33-8.

The event brought together the community, law enforcement, military branches, sponsors and football to honor the military.

A short video highlights many of the activities that transpired during Labor Day weekend. The teams for next year’s Battle at the Capital have already been selected, and preparation for the event has also begun.

21st Annual Chalk-It-Up! at Fremont Park

2011-08-30T06:45:25Z

This Labor Day weekend, people may be encouraged to walk on the grass for once as the walkways through and around Fremont Park will be transformed into a giant canvas of local art as Sacramento welcomes its 21st Annual Chalk-It-Up! art festival.

Nearly 200 artists, sponsored by local businesses, will spend three days on their hands and knees creating temporary chalk masterpieces that will remain for exhibition throughout the month of September.

Chalk-It-Up is a nonprofit organization that raises money every year through the festival to sponsor ongoing grants programs and scholarships for youth art programs throughout the Sacramento region.

“It benefits art programs in schools that, in our economic times, have been underfunded and discontinued,” said David Saalsaa, manager of University Art, the business that has sponsored the event for 15 years, providing both 12- and 24-color chalk pastel sets to all participating artists.

Up to 200 boxes of pastel sets will be donated this year.

“This is one of Sacramento’s favorite festivals. There will be art and music – everything you want in a three-day weekend,” said Alan Dismuke, board president and artist coordinator for the festival.

To accompany the free art walk, Jerry Perry Presents put together a lineup of about 30 live bands and local musicians over the three-day weekend, from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. every day, including Kepi Ghoulie and Adrian Bourgeois on Saturday, Musical Charis and Zuhg on Sunday and Walking Spanish and Deer Park Ave on Monday. For the complete performer lineup, click here.

An array of gourmet food trucks, vendors and restaurants will be present, including Blackbird Kitchen & Bar, Wicked ’Wich, Tuli Bistro, Mama Kim Cooks, and many more, as well as a number of craft vendors, including Sugar Skull Art – Mexican sugar folk art which plays an important part in Dia De Los Muertos through which art involving non-edible skulls is made from a mold of a pure sugar mixture, Fab Faces Face Painting and J27 Gallery which will feature an assorted mix of arts from local painters, jewelry artists, sculptors, metal smiths and more.

The Kids’ Creative Zone will host an abundance of activities led by the Sacramento Public Library and the Crocker Art Museum. Kids can participate in hands-on activities such as visual arts, music, dance, crafts, digital photography and digital media arts.

All kids’ activities will be led by local musicians, artists and dance groups such as the Zuhg Life Store which supports and sells music from local artists, Capitol Roots Studio and Productions and many others. Zuhg will also be performing live onstage during the festival, and all performances during the festival will be free to the public.

For adults, wine will be added to the beer garden, served alongside Stella Artois, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Shock Top Belgian White. Bistro Michel will also be selling its very own Sangria.

“There’s really something for everyone,” Dismuke said.

This year’s festival will also provide the first water events station that will dispense tap water near the stage, and will be selling reusable environmental friendly water bottles provided by CADA (Capitol Area Development Authority), which promotes mixed income sustainable development near light rail systems in Sacramento and NDS (New Direction Services) Solutions, a printing manufacturer.

There will be a People’s Choice Award announced late in the afternoon on Monday. Three top artists will be chosen from a community vote. First-, second- and third-place winners will be awarded gift cards to University Art.

Last year’s first-place winner, Derreck Johnson, will be returning this year and will be creating a portrait-style piece sponsored by University Art.

Each artist has up to three days to finish their piece, and at any point during the festival when they are finished, they are to turn in their registration form to the registration tent, and a volunteer photographer will take a photo of the piece in its freshest form.

Johnson described the difficulty he had last year behind creating a double square 2’ x 4’ chalk pastel piece of artwork, describing the smoothness of the surface of the ground to be a factor for how well the chalk may stick to the concrete.

“On the second day, people had already tracked dirt over it,” Johnson said of last year’s piece, which he had done strictly with dry chalk pastels. He also added that last year, he ran out of the chalk pastels provided, being that he did a piece on two squares of the sidewalk and had to buy some more materials. This time, he said, he will come prepared with more.

Though he said the new image is still in the works, he and Karissa McHurd, who had worked on the piece with him at last year’s Chalk-It-Up, will try something new this time around.

He said his strategy this year will change a bit, describing certain techniques such as combining chalk pastel and water to form a more semi-permanent piece or spraying the cement first before laying the chalk down which lessens the difficulty of keeping the colors from being wiped away or blended together.

“There’s a lot of good people there. Hopefully our strategy will be a bit better. Between the two of us, I think we can do something really cool,” he said.

Chalk-It-Up! Sacramento is free and open to the public, and is still accepting artists for registration. Each sidewalk square is $150, $250 for a double square, and comes with a 24-piece chalk pastel set, though community participants may purchase a square inside the park for $10, which will include a 12-piece chalk pastel set.

“It’s a well-attended event that really brings the community together,” said Saalsaa, who added that he will be attending the event with his family.

There are about 170 artists currently on the tab for this year, and others may be able to sign up the first day of the festival. All artists are encouraged to recycle any unused chalk, Dismuke said, and any unused chalk will be stored and kept until next year’s festival to be reused.

The pieces are left on the sidewalks throughout the month of September, and by October, what is left of the chalk art pieces after exposure to the elements is washed away, leaving the canvas clean for a new group of artists to paint next year.

For more information on the annual festival, click here.

Rainbow Festival celebrates 25 years Labor Day weekend

2011-08-17T04:13:58Z

Members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex community will be able to show their pride with a Midtown block party filled with music, entertainment, divas, drag shows and drinking this Labor Day weekend.

The Sacramento Rainbow Festival will feature events and entertainment Sept. 2 - 4 and will include performances by dance-pop musicians Crystal Waters and Wynter Gordon; an SF Diva Drag Show featuring Cassandra Cass; and performances by drag queen Tommi Rose the Disco Diva and singer-entertainer Jimmy James.

The festival street fair will be 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. on Sunday Sept. 4 and will feature all-day entertainment and vendors, drag shows, a Latin stage and the annual wet T-shirt and wet underwear contests.

Roads will be blocked between J and L streets and 19th and 21st streets. The streets should be cleaned and re-opened by about 8 p.m., Sidie said.

For a complete list of events, visit the CGNIE website.

Tickets to the festival are $10. Children under 12 get in free. VIP weekend passes are available for $50 and allow VIP entrance all weekend to Faces Nightclub, The Depot, Badlands, Club 21 and the street fair. VIP passes are available online.

The Sacramento Rainbow Festival has served to raise awareness of local LGBTI groups and services since 1986. Proceeds this year will go to the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center, said Terry Sidie, co-founder of the festival and owner of Faces Nightclub and other bars and clubs.

One hundred twenty to 130 booths will line the street and represent gay groups such as the Gay Cowboys, Gay Leather, Dykes on Bikes, Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus and Sacramento Women’s Chorus, Sidie said. Two new groups are Cheer Sacramento and the Lambda Players, a gay theater company.

Food and cold treats like snow cones and ice cream will be sold throughout the street fair. Other booths will have T-shirts and gay pride paraphernalia for sale.

Sidie added that there is always a lot of fun, a lot of entertainment and a lot of drinking during the festival.

“We are a party fair!” he said with a laugh.

The average crowd is between 2,500 to 3,500 people, though Sidie said he has had crowds of up to 6,000 people in the past. Sidie said expects a large turnout this year because of the weekend’s line up. He hopes to meet the 6,000 mark.

The Rainbow Festival emerged after Richard Boriolo, owner of Hamburger Patties at 1630 J St., proposed the idea to Sidie in June 1986 and held the first festival during Labor Day weekend, Boriolo said.

Boriolo said he was inspired after witnessing the 1986 San Francisco protests against the Supreme Court sodomy laws prohibiting all sexual acts not related to procreation.

“A lot of speakers from the community came to talk,” Boriolo said. “We were amazed at how quickly San Francisco was able to put together a rally. After that, we had to go back to Sacramento and do something for our own community.”

“This was back in the time when gay bars had always been locked away with no windows,” Sidie added. “Nobody was really supposed to know where they were, and all the walls were black and depressing. We decided we needed a gay fair in the gay area commonly referred to as Lavender Heights (the intersection between 20th and K streets).”

Boriolo, who had planned the Rainbow Festivals for 10 years, said that the festival is “a big tent event – it doesn’t exclude anyone.”

He said it allows young people to see the makeup of their community.

“It’s kind of like flexing in the mirror,” Boriolo said. “It shows you the size of your community and the strength you have when you get together. It’s empowering looking around and seeing a lot of people out there.”

Sidie said this year’s festival may possibly be his last to plan and direct.

Planning the festival took him about six months.“It could take up to a whole year if you really did a better job than what I do,” Sidie added. “I’m so busy doing everything else so I kind of leave it off a little bit. But it needs to be big. It needs to be 10 - 20 thousand people.”

After 25 years, he said he is looking forward to handing over the Rainbow Festival to somebody else to pick up and take over where he left off.

“We built a gay Mecca that is very pretty and, in my opinion, would compare to the Castro or any other large gay community in any large city in the United States. We’re growing, and we intend to grow more.”

As a similar event to the Rainbow Festival, Sidie is hosting the 26th anniversary celebration for Faces Nightclub this weekend, Aug. 19 - 21.

There will be drink specials, dancers, a guest DJ from New York and a pool party and free barbecue.

For more information, visit the Faces Nightclub website.

Chalk it Up! Photo Essay Part 1 of 3

2010-09-08T04:37:13Z

Sacramento to “Chalk it Up!” this weekend

2010-09-01T04:20:31Z

Sidewalk chalk isn’t just for kids, anymore.

This Labor Day weekend, Sacramentans can get in touch with their inner child at the 20th annual “Chalk it Up! to Sacramento” chalk art festival in Fremont Park. Saturday through Monday, 200 professional artists will be on their hands and knees, creating two-by-four masterpieces on the sidewalk.

Non-professionals can purchase their own squares for $10, which includes a box of chalk. A communal space with communal chalk on the interior of the park will also be available for kids and adults alike to chalk it up.

Darby Flynn, president of Chalk it Up! said this type of event is special to Sacramento.

“We want to make sure that our arts remain visible,” Flynn said. “I know it’s tough right now in this economy for everyone: Arts and artists especially have a hard time. So it’s something that definitely keeps the profile of artistry in Sacramento alive.”

Each sidewalk square is sponsored by a local business, for the cost of $150. Each artist receives a 24-piece box of chalk. Flynn said this chalk is not your typical chalk: It is buttery in texture, and similar to pastel chalk, yet is environmentally friendly because of its water-soluble component.

More than 5,000 pieces of chalk will be used this weekend, all donated by University Art on J Street.

Traditionally, Chalk it Up! has not been a competition among artists. This year, however, Flynn said the public will get a chance to vote for their top-three masterpieces. Winning artists will receive a people’s choice award and prize on Monday afternoon in an awards ceremony.

The festival will feature activities for both children and adults. A beer garden area will be located in the park, among along with food and craft vendors. The Kids Creative Space will feature a spot for children to participate in arts and crafts, including making their own instruments through recycled materials with the help of the McClatchy High School Marching Band.

The art festival is also part music: Nine local musicians will perform each day of the festival. Featured artists include Walking Spanish, Ricky Berger, Autumn Sky and Prieta.

Chalk it Up! was at one point held in Cesar Chavez Park and began when a group of community artists got together who wanted to show off the talents of Sacramento artists. Flynn said the festival has been located at Fremont Park, 16th and Q streets, since 1999.

Mochii Yogurt, located across from Fremont Park on 1530 16th St, sees an increase in revenue to double what is normal during the festival weekend.

“Chalk it Up! is a huge event. It’s fantastic for business,” Mark Otero said, founder of Mochii Yogurt. “We get a lot of families, a lot of creative people. It’s really good for the community.”

The festival occurs daily from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. starting this Saturday through Monday.

For those who can’t make it out to the festival, the chalk art will stay on the sidewalk for a couple weeks, until the city of Sacramento washes it off, Flynn said.

Sidewalk art at Chalk it Up!

2009-09-08T15:18:02Z

Sacramento's Gold Rush Days

2009-09-03T05:46:39Z

Old Sacramento will be transported back to the mid-1800s once again for its 10th Annual Sacramento Gold Rush Days this Labor Day weekend.

Two hundred tons of dirt will transform this already rustic landmark heritage site into the appropriate mid-1850s California Gold Rush setting. Walking along the dusty trail, be prepared to witness a flurry of time-piece bands, costumed Wild West reenactors, horse-drawn carriages and Gold Rush activities for all ages — such as gold panning.

Sloughs for gold panning will be located in a few different locations, by the Railroad Museum and Wells Fargo Museum. Bits of real gold can also be found for the lucky few, according to Mike Testa, vice president of communications for the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"This is a great place to get entertainment," Testa said. "If you have never seen Old Sac before, it is worth seeing it during this time," said Mike Testa.

This free event will be spaced out over four days starting September 4th. Returning attractions include gunslinging reenactors along K Street, such as the Blue Canyon Gang and the Black Coat Sierra Nevada Guns for Hire. Don't worry about missing a performance, they will be performing every day at almost every hour.

"All of the [gunslingers] are hired guns," Testa said. "Some of them do this professionally for a living. Some in fact have worked in Western movies out of Hollywood or in Universal Studios," explains Mike Testa.

The event kicks off on Friday with music on the Embarcadero Stage, located in front of the Railroad Museum on I Street, along with gunslingers and street performers. A lot of the special events are on going all day and will repeat each hour. Tents will be set up with vendors, period artifacts and storytelling. Storytellers are all local volunteer docents with a wealth of knowledge and collaborative love of the Gold Rush Era.

Attendees can expect a tantalizing feast of barbecue meats and grilled vegetables at the surrounding eateries. All the restaurants will be open in Old Sacramento, along with Old West-style cooking demonstrations.

"Unfortunately, we can't sell the [demonstration] food because of health food regulations, but we can demonstrate how it was prepared," Testa said.

Quite a few of the restaurants will be running specials to coincide with the Western theme. The Delta King on the Sacramento River will be providing some specials, as will the famous burger joint Fanny Anne's.

But really, "All of the [restaurants] in Old Sac get involved in something fun," Testa said.

The cultural and ethnic performances have also expanded this year. At the Embarcadero Stage, some of the cultural variety pieces being presented will include European, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, African-American and Native Californian, according to the Gold Rush Days website. All of the performances will be done in authentic Gold Rush-era garb.

Dancing and musicians will be on hand to create a lively, Wild West atmosphere. According to Testa, a crowd favorite return will be the Johnny Cash Tribute Band performing on the Save Mart Stage on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The Pony Express will be running the streets approximately three to four times per day. Visitors can expect uniformed postal workers on thundering horses galloping through the streets. A cannon-firing will take place each day at high noon at the Embarcadero Stage.

For a complete listing of performance times and scheduled events, please check the Sacramento Gold Rush website at Sacramento Gold Rush Days. Programs and walking maps will also be provided.

To help minimize parking issues, Testa encourages patrons to park at Downtown Plaza or use Regional Transit.

Photo courtesy of Sacramento History Museum.