There’s something for everyone at the Palos Verdes Peninsula Community Street Fair.
No one seems to be left out of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Community Street Fair unfolding Saturday and Sunday in Rolling Hills Estates.
Children will have their own play land, complete with Ferris wheel and a petting zoo, and a special area will be provided for skateboarders who want to do some fancy turns.
Antique car buffs may view classic vehicles of the ‘40s and ‘50s.
Art fanciers may browse through the booths of 100 artists and crafts people and pick up everything from a $5 wooden whistle, which sounds like the screech of a train, to fine art priced at more than $1,000.
Cooks will be able to bake apple pies and simmer chili for prizes, including free dinners and cash.
Gluttons can even enter a pie-eating contest.
“It has a country fair feeling to it and we’re enthused,” said Mark Conte, who is staging the free fair for the city of Rolling Hills Estates and the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.
Four stages will offer continuous entertainment and a food pavilion will serve international delicacies. “Anyone can spend the whole day and go from location to location and not get bored,” he said.
The fair will branch out from the intersection of Silver Spur Road and Crossfield Drive, the heart of the Peninsula Center. Crossfield, as well as portions of Deep Valley Drive, will be closed off and dotted with festive booths. About 100 volunteers are working on the fair and community organizations will be able to raise funds through booths they operate.
In addition to professional entertainment, community ensembles will perform both days starting at 11 a.m. Attractions include children’s jazz, tap and ballet groups, square dancers, a symphonic band, drill teams, aerobics groups and a barbershop harmony chorus.
“We wanted to get the community involved in performing and everyone is doing this free of charge,” said Julie Belte, an executive assistant at the Palos Verdes Library District, who is helping coordinate the community presentations.
“It’s good exposure for the kids and people to get to see tap and ballet,” commented Tita Boulger, director of the Peninsula School of Performing Arts, where some of the youngsters train.
The arts and crafts area is striving for quality work offering a “little bit of everything,” said Pam Vickers, arts coordinator for the fair. The array includes hand-painted clothing, jewelry, fine painting, sculpture, ceramics and American Indian crafts.
Anyone can enter Saturday’s apple pie baking contest by bringing a pie to Marie Callender’s on Deep Valley between 10 and 11 a.m. Last year’s contest drew 20 entries--one of them a square pie.
On Sunday, pies will also be in the spotlight, but this time it’s not a contest for bakers but for pie eaters--at 3, 4 and 5 p.m.
Regular chili chefs, as well as first-timers, are expected at Saturday’s chili cook-off, which is sanctioned by the International Chili Society and starts at noon on the upper level of the Buffums parking structure. Entrants must provide their own booths and stoves.
Lisa Nederburgh, chairman of the chili cook-off, said some entrants on the chili-cooking circuit come with both colorful booths and catchy names. One group, the Pirates, sets up a booth that looks like the hull of a ship with cannons. “A lot of people go from cook-off to cook-off,” she said.
Rolling Hills Estates Mayor Nell Mirels is a judge for both the apple pie baking contest and the chili cook-off.
“It should take care of the whole day,” she said. “It will save me from cooking all day long and give me terrible heartburn.”
The peninsula fair was started last year, and chamber Executive Director Mary Cooper said that staging it was a new experience for everyone involved. “We’d never done anything like this before and we were really gratified and amazed that about 7,000 came last year,” she said.
What: Palos Verdes Peninsula Community Street Fair.
When: Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Where: Peninsula Center, Silver Spur Road and Crossfield Drive, Rolling Hills Estates.
Admission: Free.
Information: 377-8111.
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