The longest running event of any kind in Santa Monica, the Canyon Charter School’s legendary Fiesta and Silent Auction will be held for the 111th year on Sunday, April 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the school campus at 421 Entrada Drive in Santa Monica Canyon.
The first fiesta was held in 1894 at a one-room school house on the Marquez family land grant, the area’s original rancho. Today, that original building is the charter school’s library.
In addition to celebrating the Canyon’s rich Latin heritage, the annual fiesta is a benefit for the school, which is not only arguably the oldest school in Los Angeles, but among its most highly rated.
Funds raised at the fiesta are used to enhance the instructional program with additional activities.
Hghlights of the fiesta will include music by the Mariachis, local chef Joe Miller’s south of the boarder cuisine, an amusement park with a 45-foot Ferris wheel, a Go-Gater roller coaster, a pirate ship swing and a 70 foot obstacle course, pitch and toss games, including mini basketball, duck races and milk bottles.
There will also be children’s arts and crafts, make-up, and face painting, pony rides, a petting zoo, a Mercado with fiesta-themed items for sale, skee ball and a cake walk, whose winners will go home with fabulous desserts.
Game tickets can be redeemed for prizes.
The school’s newly refurbished auditorium will be the site of a sailent auction, which will offer over 500 items priced as low as $5 and as high as $5,000.
Some of the more unusual items are a martini party for eight at Gotham Hall, two tickets to the world premiere of “Bewitched,” a weekend stay at Santa Monica’s Fairmont Miramar hotel and a kid-size basketball jersey signed by Shaq.
A Segway electric Scooter and other choice items will go on the block at 12:30 p.m. in a live auction.
New this year are an instantaneous tag sale and $25 surprise piñatas that may be worth much more.Fiesta admission is free. Parking, with shuttle service to the school, is available at Marix Restaurant, 118 Entrada Drive. The Silent Auction catalogue is available now. For more information, call Canyon Charter School at (310) 454-7510.
