Fiesta Sahuarita 2011
The 2011 Fiesta Sahuarita was the most popular Town birthday party ever! Anamax Park hosted over 10,000 people with a range of activities.
Sahuarita Parks and Recreation staff, volunteers from other Town departments, and approximately 200 citizen volunteers, made this year’s Fiesta a huge success. The Town offers a big thank you to the young volunteers who came from the National Junior Honor Society, National Junior ROTC, and all the adults who also volunteered. See Volunteer List
Many visited historic displays celebrating Arizona’s Centennial. And some bought raffle tickets for a chance to win the Copper Chopper, a one-of-a-kind, custom motorcycle designed by Paul Yaffe. The Mayor welcomed the Fiesta audience who enjoyed live and recorded music and dance performances. The Town gave T-shirts to 1,000 Fiesta-goers. The large crowd caused several food vendors to run out of food and call their off-site kitchens for more. Young kids enjoyed the bounce castles, train rides and pony rides. Kids of all ages tested their skills at carnival-style games. A special thank you goes out to Platinum Sponsors: See Sponsor List
Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold, Caterpillar, Green Valley News & Sahuarita Sun, KGVY 1080 Radio Station, Rancho Sahuarita Company and Saguaro Environmental Services. The Town of Sahuarita also thanks all the other sponsors for a great event.
In the early morning hours, over 100 runners and walkers participated in the Fiesta Sahuarita 5K run and 1 mile fun run/walk through neighborhood streets near Anamax Park. Race results can be found at: http://taggrun.com/results.shtml?1316910998
We asked some of the Town staff about their Fiesta experience:
Martha Montgomery - "I attended the very first Fiesta Sahuarita many years ago. It is amazing and exciting to see how the event has grown. The Parks & Rec folks do a great job!"
Kathy Ward - "My favorite part is, every year, the Optimist Sausage booth. I like that it’s in the same place every year....so that I can go straight there! I also thought that there were many more people at Fiesta this year than in previous years....it looked crowded, busy, and everybody happy....including the kids on that zero gravity thing. That’s a keeper for sure. Congratulations on a job well done!"
Debbie Summers - "WE are forever grateful to BEN! Our P & R Commission Member Ben Vaterlaus did an EXTRODINARY Volunteer Coordination job and on HIS BIRTHDAY so I would really like to mention what a heap of help he gave us Saturday. He also agreed to do it again next year with some help like a volunteer assistant coordinator, which means we did not scare him away!!! I also have to say I thought the Mayor did a wonderful intro to everyone. And finally, as the P & R Director very proud of my staff for the great job and hard work they all did behind the scenes for the last 6 months. It was well organized and so organized that our vendor Parties Plus said they had never seen an event so organized during their years of setting up for events like ours!
Sarah More - "This was the first year I attended the Fiesta. Brought my adult daughter, one of her friends and my two young grandchildren. It was a wonderful event for all ages. The grounds were beautiful, the views of the mountains around the area were great. Very nice to have tent/covered seating for dining. And, wonderful food! Very nice to have lots of local talent, loved the music. Lots of informative and fun booths for local business and agencies. I would have to say that the highlight for the 3 and 6 year old children were all the jumping castles and slides. They really enjoyed them. See you next year!"
Ron Bishop - "This was our first Fiesta. I thought the shuttles ran very well. We arrived a little after 3 and left a bit before 6. We parked at Fry’s and didn’t even wait 10 minutes both arriving and departing. The bus was full on both trips. The only reason we waited almost 10 minutes coming back to Fry’s was we gave our seats up to an elderly couple. The food was great, entertainment was very good and lots of interesting booths; I even met the local Ham Radio guys and that was on my ‘To Do’ list for our Emergency Operations Center. My wife was pleasantly surprised a community of our size could stage such a cool event. Great job to everyone involved."
