Festival Brings Families Downtown

Hundreds of Valley residents sampled the history and fare of downtown San Fernando on Sunday during the city’s Family Festival in the historic quarter.

Latin music and aguas frescas--sweetened fruit drinks--held sway on two blocks between the centuries-old Lopez Adobe and the entrance to the San Fernando Mall.

Mayor Sylveria Robledo said the festival was started to attract residents and businesses in the northeast San Fernando Valley to “come and love our culture.”

“You can get a sense of the old San Fernando and what we want to do with the new San Fernando,” Robledo said. “As you can see, San Fernando is a family city. All of these young families are out here, just as they usually are.”

The shops outside the festival were just as busy Sunday. The fair offered locals more of the same flavor found in the city’s downtown mom-and-pop stores.

“It’s good for people to be out and enjoying themselves together,” said Jorge Rios, a local resident who was at the festival. “But this is almost an everyday thing for San Fernando. People are always walking around downtown, shopping. You can always hear music coming from the record stores. This [festival] really just brings a few more people together at the same time and lets people from everywhere else see what we do.”

The festival continues with weekly street fairs on Sundays through November, culminating with the annual San Fernando Festival and the second annual Mayor’s Menudo kickoff. For more information, call the city’s festival hotline at (818) 361-3885.