Hispanic Festival enjoys solid debut

The Fremont Hispanic Festival featured food, music, crafts and entertainment during its debut Saturday. 
 
“I thought it was a great turnout,” said Lauren Foster, Director of Quality of Life for the Greater Fremont Development Council. “We had a lot of people show up for the parade and there were a lot of great participants in it that made it very fun and festive. That rolled over into (John C. Fremont Park) with a lot of great performances from groups that are here in Fremont.” 
 
Foster said the festival should become a regular spring fixture for the city. 
 
“We plan on making it an annual event,” she said. “This year — when it came to us — we probably had about a month to plan so we’re hoping to plan to start in July for next year. Hopefully, we can make it bigger and kind of scale it up from there. … Everyone put in a lot of hard work, but it definitely paid off.” 
 
Foster believes the collaboration of several nonprofits and committees, including the Fremont Area United Way, MainStreet Fremont, Greater Fremont Development Council and Multicultural Diversity and Inclusion Council helped the festival become a reality.
 
“It did come together pretty smoothly with a lot of different organizations to helping to collaborate,” she said. “The idea started from a few of our local Hispanic businesses, Reinita’s Restaurant and Epicentro … So with everyone helping, it did make it a lot smoother and a lot easier to get things done. We broke everything out into different subcommittees and each organization kind of took one piece of planning.” 
 
Foster said it was rewarding to work on the festival. 
 
“Honestly, it was my first big event that I’ve ever planned like this so it was just super neat to be planning something that’s new for the community,” she said. “It was just great to see all of the pieces come together to make a big success. I’m very proud to be a part of this and looking forward to what we can do next year.”
 
The event wouldn’t have been possible, however, without sponsorships. 
 
“A huge thank you to all of our sponsors,” Foster said. “The number of organizations and businesses that were willing to donate to make this happen also made it very easy. We were able to raise a lot of money to put this on and we have money that will be left over to help for next year.”