OctoberThe California Avocado Festival is held every October in Carpinteria, Calif. The three-day, free event features music, arts and crafts, activities (including a golf tournament), and a kids' block party with games, face-painting, and crafts. It also celebrates the avocado. At the Avocado Expo tent, competitors vie to win the awards for best guacamole and biggest avocado. There are cooking demonstrations and a display of the largest vat of guacamole in the world. About 100,000 visitors enjoy each year's avocado celebration.
The festival began in 1986, when a group of community leaders in Carpinteria met to organize an ongoing weekend event to help raise money for local non-profit organizations. Carpinteria is an avocado-growing area located in Santa Barbara County, the third-largest producer of avocados in North America. It seemed natural to put the rough-skinned green fruit at the center of the event. Now the festival benefits more than 40 non-profit groups, whose volunteers work at the festival. And the festival itself is a volunteer-run event, with just one part-time paid staff person. A non-profit group itself, the festival generates its own annual operating revenue.
CONTACTS:
California Avocado Festival
P.O. Box 146
Carpinteria, CA 93014-0146
805-684-0038
www.avofest.com