Locals celebrate Saratoga with street festival

On Sept. 16, quiet Saratoga downtown was transformed into a bustling street festival known as “Celebrate Saratoga,” a fresh and more family-friendly take on the now-defunct “Saratoga Street Dance.”

Families and couples milled about Big Basin Road, enjoying the offerings of local vendors, wineries and musicians. The theme of the event seemed to be about utilizing Saratoga’s surprising wealth of local resources.

“Local businesses come out and volunteer while [simultaneously] being able to brand and have good will in the community,” Saratoga Chamber of Commerce president Scott Anderson said.

Celebrate Saratoga also featured the school’s robotics team M-SET. Junior Alex Renda worked at the M-SET booth from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m., and ran demonstrations of the team’s robot every 15 minutes.

“We hope to get more people interested in science and technology, especially young people who might not have much exposure to it,” Renda said. “We want people to become interested in robotics, and we’ve had a lot of people here for the demonstrations.”

Numerous students contributed to the festival in various ways, which ranged from assisting the performers to actually performing and showing off their musical talent. Senior Sujay Khandekar played the drums in a band with two friends.

“It was my first time playing in front of an audience so it was initially a little scary, but when parents and friends starting gathering around and watching, all of that anxiety went away,” Khandekar said. “Even if people stopped by for a second to watch us, I still appreciated it.”

Senior Geneva Fairchild volunteered at the event by manning one of the beverage booths.

“[Volunteering at Celebrate Saratoga] sounded like a fun [way] to help out the community and meet people,” Fairchild said. “I’ve met some people from Lynbrook who have helped me man the booth.”

After a turnout of 25,000 people to the Street Dance in 2007, the city’s Chamber of Commerce felt the annual event had gotten out-of-hand, and no longer represented the spirit of the idyllic city. This year, it opted to turn the event, now referred to as the “Village Block Party” into a more low-key event with a target of 6,000 attendees.

Senior Kate Belotti thought that the Village Block Party catered to an older demographic of people, in addition to being more family-friendly than the Street Dance.

“There are more people than I expected,” Belotti said. “There are definitely older people than those at the Street Dance and a lot more families, which fits Saratoga.”

The Chamber of Commerce, which had began planning the event in January, received a remarkable amount of support from the community.

“The soda booths and wine booths are all volunteer-run,” Anderson said. “As you listen to music today, not a penny was spent on it, and that is unheard of [for events like Celebrate Saratoga].”

The event proved to be beneficial for local artisan vendors as well. Local jewelry maker Elizabeth Lynn Moon, a native of Palo Alto, hosted a booth at the festival in order to increase the exposure of her handmade bead jewelry.

“I always look for opportunities to reach out to new public and build my email list,” Lynn Moon said. “As an artist you want people to know about your work.”

Khandekar thought the event injected some much-needed energy into the sleepy community.

“This was the busiest I’ve seen downtown Saratoga in a while,” Khandekar said. “Celebrate Saratoga definitely exceeded my expectations because I thought it would [not be as popular], but it was really crowded.”