The Lady Vaquero basketball team hosted their tenth annual “Surf Fest and Swap Meet” on Saturday in the City College parking lot across from Leadbetter Beach.
This very popular fundraiser included music, food, and countless booths set up for swapping or buying.
JP Denyer, a retired art teacher in Montecito, was swapping and selling her own, handmade, acrylic paintings.
“Each painting took on average two hours to make, depending on the size and my mood that day,” Denyer said. She was also selling toys. She said her son inspired her to join the toy industry.
There was also a booth run by Adela Hallberg called Vintage Sea Cottage which sold handmade jewelry. Hallberg designs her own jewelry made from shells imported from Hawaii and various crystals. She shows off the numerous rings covering her hands of all different shapes and colors.
The long beautiful necklaces covered in shells and crystals clank together in the breeze as viewers admired her work.
“It’s called babysitting grandkids and Netflix,” Hallberg said, pointing at her handmade crown covered in jewels and shells. “It’s a lot of patience.”
A few booths down, Robert Brunner said he’s from the Vintage Surfboard Collectors Club and loves to support City College by “coming to events like this and offering what I have to sell.” However he wasn’t the only booth selling surfboards at this event. Four different booths had surfboards as their main merchandise while other booths had one or two boards to sell, too.
Lighthouse Skateshop also made an appearance at the swap meet. Their booth was full of different kinds of boards for sale as well as T-shirts and hats sold by Naren Porter-Kasbati. Kasbati said they come every year to support the school.
Another popular booth was the Flower Child booth. The booth was filled with hundreds of jean jackets of all sizes and colors. Mona Khashoggi, the owner of Flower Child, said she gets old jean jackets from thrift shops and then orders interesting patches and other accessories online and designs the jackets herself. She said her inspiration came from her nieces and nephews.
“It started out as a good present for Christmas, but then it became a hobby and soon after a company,” Khashoggi said.
The event also included a raffle and the chance to win two round-trip airfare tickets to Las Vegas and other smaller prizes like Chipotle gift cards. The Surf Fest and Swap Meet also had a free Zumba class where everyone was welcome.
The women’s basketball team will face their first opponent this season at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 2 at City College.
