Everyone loves a “win-win” situation. One of those “nobody loses” scenarios is set to play out Saturday when the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association invites the public to taste some grape while supporting a trio of longtime SCNA beneficiaries at the 20th annual Curtis Park Wine Tasting and Silent Auction.
“Of the dozen or so different events we hold each year, it’s our biggest fundraiser,” said SCNA board member Melanie Smith, who is hoping that the annual community festival will bring in big bucks that will help keep the C.K. McClatchy High School cross-country and track and field teams in uniforms and equipment, send Bret Harte Elementary School sixth graders to the Sly Park Environmental Education Center and ensure the Sierra 2 Center is in good repair.
“I was told some 90 percent of the sixth graders are in need and couldn’t afford the $265 cost to attend without some help,” Smith said. “Thanks to fundraisers like this, kids who wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise will be able to go.”
Smith said she’s hoping to break some attendance records at this year’s Cook Realty-sponsored event, set for 4-7 p.m. at the Sierra 2 Center (2791 24th St., Sacramento), thanks to an expanded lineup that includes a second outdoor venue – the “Belgian Beer Garden.”
Coordinated by SCNA board member Rob Archie – owner of Franklin Boulevard’s Pangaea Two Brews Café – the beer garden will offer a host of foreign suds (included with the wine and food sampling covered by the $30-$45 ticket price), as well as classic rock, pop and folk tunes played by the TuTones.
The food sampling (courtesy of more than 24 area food purveyors, including Tuli Bistro, which is bringing a portable pizza oven), wines selected by longtime Taylor’s Market wine coordinator Dick Ebert and the music of harpist Bill Bamian will be the star attractions at the event’s original outdoor venue – the Curtis Hall Pavilion.
“We’ll be featuring somewhere close to 35 to 40 wineries and distributors,” said Smith, a freelance writer/editor who joined the SCNA board in May, shortly after she and husband Gary Weinberg moved back to Sacramento after spending a decade in the Los Angeles area.
“There will also be a lot of wine – and wine-related – raffle and silent-auction items,” Smith said, noting that some of the more than 40 “really interesting” auction items include private chef-prepared dinner parties served in some of the neighborhood’s picturesque residences.
“Another great auction item is the opportunity for someone to create their own ‘flavor of the month’ that Gunther’s ice cream shop will feature at their store,” Smith said.
“This is a fabulous neighborhood and a fabulous organization,” Smith said. “The people here are really committed to their neighborhood and work really hard for it – keeping it artistically rich and architecturally lovely.”
To purchase tickets, or for more information on the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association’s 20th annual Curtis Park Wine Tasting and Silent Auction, call the Sierra 2 Center at (916) 452-3005. Tickets also may be purchased at Taylor’s Market and online at www.sierra2.org.
photographs courtesy of the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association
