Festivals/Annual Events

Before Thanksgiving dinner this year, Ballardites are invited to build up an appetite and do some good by participating in the fourth annual Seattle Turkey Trot, a 5K walk, jog or run to benefit the Ballard Food Bank.

Signups are now open for the 9 a.m. Nov. 25 event, which culminates at Golden Gardens. Last year, 1,100 participants raised more than $19,000 for the Ballard Food Bank.

The 2009 Turkey Trot, which featured participants in running attire or elaborate costumes and was won by New Yorker Nick Roosa in town visiting his sister, saw a huge leap in popularity in the event, with five times as many participants than in 2008.

For more information or to sign up, visit www.seattleturkeytrot.org.

It won’t be the celebration they had back in 1935, when Seattle’s 6,000-seat Civic Auditorium was the setting for an early Oct. 9 Leif Erikson Day celebrations. But, Leif Erikson Day 2010 will contain many of the same elements.

In fact, the Seattle Civic Auditorium has changed more than the local celebration has. This landmark built in 1928 became the Seattle Opera House in the early 1960s and was then gutted and reconstructed as McCall Hall in 2003.

Leif Erikson Day, on the other hand, still includes a gathering, a dinner, a speaker, Scandinavian music, the governor’s proclamation, and all the Nordic pride the participants can muster.

Washington’s Gov. Clarence Martin issued the state’s first proclamation of Leif Erikson Day and Gov. Chris Gregoire followed 75 years later with a very similar proclamation. Both mentioned Leif Erikson as the first of many Scandinavians who journeyed to America.

Martin’s message reported that local Scandinavians were making plans for a suitable memorial to Leif Erikson, and Gregoire’s brags that the Ballard statue of Leif Erikson has been replicated and given to Norway and Greenland.

Westfest, the annual festival put on by Holy Rosary Church and School had a "surprising number of people" appear even during a very rainy Friday evening, Sept. 17 and hundreds who were more than happy to visit Saturday Sept. 18 when the event was blessed with some glorious sunshine.

CLICK THE PHOTO TO SEE MORE IMAGES FROM THE EVENT

Hundreds gobbled down the barbecued ribs and other great food outside and still more spent their time on the rides, watching the dancers and other performers or took part in the fun and games in the school and the gymnasium where an array of activities were up and running.

The event raises more than $30,000 to support the Holy Rosary School and is now in its 21st year.

It features rides, kids’ games, an entertainment stage, specialty food booths, beer garden, BINGO, a used book sale, a raffle and much more on the Holy Rosary School grounds, between 41st and 42nd s.w. on Dakota Street.

The bumbershoots came out Sept. 6 as the rain set in for the final day of the 2010 Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival.

The wet weather couldn't dampen enthusiasm as festival-goers kept dry inside the Experience Music Project for local acts like BOAT and People Eating People or bounced up and down under a canopy of umbrellas for Bomba Estéreo.

This slideshow from day three of Bumbershoot 2010 features:

• Japandroids
• The Moondoggies
• The Whigs
• BOAT
• JEFF The Brotherhood
• Trampled By Turtles
• People Eating People
• Victor Shade

Click the image above to the view the slideshow.

The 2010 Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival rolled on Sept. 5 with a surprise appearance from the sun bringing out droves of festival-goers.

This slideshow from day two of Bumbershoot 2010 features:

• The Physics
• Dolorean
• Fences
• The Bouncing Souls
• David Bazan
• Georgia Anne Muldrow
• The Crash Kings
• The Lonely H
• Fresh Espresso
• Horse Feathers
• Eldridge Gravy and The Court Supreme

Click the image above to view the slideshow.

The 40th annual Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival got underway Sept. 4 with local talent like Great Waves and Visqueen, legends like Bob Dylan and Solomon Burke, and even a few Ballardites sprinkled in.

This slideshow from day one of Bumbershoot 2010 features:

• Solomon Burke
• The Cute Lepers
• Balkan Beat Box
• Jamie Lidell
• Atlas Sound
• Wheedle's Groove
• Zo Muth & The Lost High Rollers
• Star Anna & The Laughing Dogs
• Idiot Pilot
• Great Waves
• Grynch
• Becki Sue & Her Big Rockin' Daddies!

Click image above to view the slideshow.

The annual Ballard Art in the Garden Festival returned to the Ballard P-Patch from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 21.

Hundreds of Ballardites roamed amongst the beds of sunflowers, artichokes and tomatoes while listening to music and admiring pieces from 25 local artists.

A lot of people in the neighborhood don't know the Ballard P-Patch, located at Northwest 85th Street and 25th Avenue Northwest, is there, said Mark Cooper, who tends a plot in the garden.

Art in the Garden is a great way to get attention for the P-Patch, Cooper said.

In addition to music, art and, of course, the gardens, the festival featured a flower sale, children's painting, a bake sale, a puppet show, a barbecue, a silent auction and more.

Cooper said, though it's cliched, a community garden is not really about the garden, it's about the community.

"It's great to be among fellow gardeners," he said. "There's a real sense of community to it."

Click the image above for a slideshow from the 2010 Art in the Garden Festival.

For neighborhood residents ready for a break from the crowded, noisy summer street festival scene, the Ballard Art in the Garden Festival is here to help.

The annual festival at the Ballard P-Patch returns for its 10th year Aug. 21. Event Chair Kelly Ryan said he credits Art in the Garden's longevity to the venue.

"The whole concept of music and food and art in a garden is so relaxing," Ryan said. "There's something pretty special about walking around and smelling that food and hearing that music."

The nature of gardening itself has also helped keep the festival going for a decade, he said.

"Gardening is a thing that once you get it in your system, it doesn't go away," Ryan said. "It's a lifestyle."

Ryan, who is also a gardener at the Ballard P-Patch, said the festival is a way for gardeners to showoff and give the community a taste of what can be done with the soil.

Now is a fitting time to do that, with long waiting lists for P-patches and parents starting to teach their children to garden again, he said.

The Pasefika Festival, produced by the community services arm of the White Center Assembly was held Saturday, Aug 14 at White Center Heights Elementary School at 10015 6th Avenue Southwest and featured multi cultural displays, music dancing and a lot of food.

This was the seventh annual event in the series that was begun by the church which also uses the school as its assembly hall on Sundays.
They had "Barbecue, traditional Samoan food, arts and crafts, information booths, and more," said Vili Talaepa head of security for the event.

King County Executive Dow Constantine came to speak at the event as he has in years past, and Sili Savusa and Sue Godding both Highline School Board members also had some thoughts for the crowd.

Pastor Mable Magalei said, "The purpose and focus of the festival is to bring the Pacific Island community together, to see each other but also to celebrate our heritage and culture."

The event featured performances from Fiji, Micronesia, Samoa, Hawaii, Tonga and elsewhere.

Thousands of people young and old lined the streets of Greenwood July 28 to bear witness to the 60th annual Greenwood Seafair Parade.

Politicians and princesses waved to the crowd, marching bands played, giant meerkats posed and children swarmed to the free candy being tossed their way.

The Greenwood Seafair Parade truly feels like a neighborhood event as business owners and patrons watched from windows and doorways, old-time residents came out of their homes to line the sidewalk and inhabitants of the newer apartment developments watched from their balconies.

Seafair 2010 continues July 31 with the Torchlight Parade in downtown Seattle.

Click image above for a slideshow from the parade.