Orange Coast College Swap Meet returns to Costa Mesa this weekend

For a community of vendors and customers who’ve bought, sold and haggled over items new and used at the Orange Coast College Swap Meet for decades, this weekend’s reopening is sure to feel like a bit of a homecoming.

The event returns to the Costa Mesa college campus July 3 and 4, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and organizers anticipate up to 400 vendors will arrive for the grand opening on Saturday, with 600 sellers expected to arrive on Sunday.

Ruben Barriga, OCC’s director of college and community support, has overseen the swap meet for the past four years and still remembers the last event held on March 7, 2020.

“It was a very somber day,” he recalled. “It was a rainy day. We had to shut it down and literally had to turn away vendors at the door.”

Orange Coast College’s weekend swap meets, which closed March 7, 2020 due to the pandemic will return to the Costa Mesa campus July 3 and 4.

(Courtesy of Orange Coast College)

Juan Gutierrez, spokesman for the college, said news of the reopening is quickly spreading among the many people who attended the event over the years.

“I know other colleges have swap meets, but ours seems to be very popular,” he said. “Before the COVID pandemic when we had to close everything down, we’d had people who’d been vendors for years.”

For merchants whose livelihoods depend on retail sales and public marketplaces, the closure of swap meets and farmers markets throughout Orange County created a hardship that is only now beginning to ease up.

“To see the excitement on their faces and, at times, teary eyes makes you understand the struggle they endured through the pandemic,” Barriga said. “For our 220 permanent vendors this was their livelihood, so bringing them back gives them hope.”

Vendors from throughout the region will return to Orange Coast College July 3 and 4 for the OCC Swap Meet for the first time in 15 months.

(Courtesy of Orange Coast College)

William Pezzullo lives in the city of Orange and has sold nuts, dried fruits, seeds and snacks at the OCC Swap Meet for more than two decades. He said he’s not only missed the income, but the camaraderie that comes from working alongside other vendors and seeing regular customers return each week in search of treasures.

“We look forward to seeing our vendor friends we haven’t seen for a long time and our customers,” he said Thursday. “I’ve made a lot of friends and acquaintances over the last 25 years.”

Some minor modifications will be put in place, and employees of the swap meet will be wearing facial coverings, Barriga said. Visitors who have not been fully vaccinated will be asked to wear masks while on campus.

Saturday’s reopening will be highlighted by musical performances from the youth ensemble Mariachi Juvenil Herencia Michoacana. For more, visit prod.orangecoastcollege.edu/community/swap-meet.

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