Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Final Preparations: Wayne Schneider has been coming to Campbell's PruneFestival for nine years and blowing up a giant inflatable slide and sea serpent for the Kiddie Korner section of the event.
The making of the PruneFestival
Tens of thousands come to Campbell during 24th annual PruneFestival
By Sheila Sanchez
Countless hours of preparation and planning by the Campbell Chamber of Commerce's board of directors and dedicated volunteers helped make the 24th annual PruneFestival a success this past weekend.
Months of planning and diligent work behind the scenes paid off Saturday and Sunday, attracting tens of thousands of people to historic downtown Campbell, their festival dollars stimulating the city's economy and giving Campbell businesses a boost. The event remains one of the Chamber's biggest fundraisers.
"Festivals take planning year-round," says Campbell Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Betty Deal, speaking about her dedication and love for the festival. "And the community as a whole benefits from this event. People go out of their way to come to Campbell."
A sense of the festival's grueling demands and the stress and hard work it requires from Deal and other Chamber members can easily be captured at 10:30 p.m. on Friday, the day before the event.
Deal--as she has done since joining the Chamber in December of 1995--is out walking around downtown Campbell in the cold evening breeze, helping Lisa Furia with the A&R Booth Rentals Company and other merchants mark the streets for the approximately 350 booth structures that will be erected during the two-day festival.
A&R Booth has been in business with Campbell since 1978.
Historic downtown Campbell transforms itself from empty dark evening streets to a pleasant festival scene with colored canopies in the heart of the city and thousands of families, friends, merchants and city officials participating in one of the two Chamber events Deal will work to sponsor and put together. The other one is the Oktoberfest.
"Campbell has very nice festivals," Furia says. "This is one of the few ones we actually will come to as a family to enjoy ourselves."
Meanwhile Deal is coughing up a storm and has a bad case of laryngitis, but nothing is stopping her this festival eve. She walks quickly, making it difficult for the entourage that follows her to keep up. In the meantime, her pager is going off constantly.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Festival Fun: Wayne Schneider's popular train ride drove festival participants around historic Downtown Campbell during this past weekend's PruneFestival.
Her work Friday evening is a challenge. Some of Campbell's restaurants and bars don't close until 2 a.m. and traffic is still a concern. There are also many last-minute preparations she's still worried about.
Deal is known as Campbell's worker bee, a "perfect person to work with" and "the lady who works her tail off" for Campbell's PruneFestival, Furia and others say.
The streets are finally closed from Harrison Avenue down to Third Street and from Campbell Avenue to Civic Center Drive with Furia's assistance, several volunteers and the Campbell Police Department.
"We have it down to a science," Deal says, coughing some more. "I have to go home and get some rest, because I'm back here at 6 a.m. tomorrow."
But her Friday began much earlier. She rose at 6 a.m. to help set up portable bathrooms, and washstands and direct traffic up and down Campbell Avenue.
Then she spent a couple of hours in her Chamber office making sure she had enough festival volunteers, that all festival documents were in order, meeting with police and vendor officials, and picking up health department certificates that allow alcohol beverages to be served during the event. She also picked up walkie-talkies to communicate with the police and other festival organizers during the event, prepared the festival inventory and made sure her insurance papers were in order.
About 400 volunteers, from rank and file to company presidents. Joan Testa, husband Frank and son Michael diligently fly from Bedford, Texas, to the Bay Area every year to help out with the festival and the OktoberFestival. The volunteers man four wine, beer, ticket and soda booths each.
Testa's love affair with Campbell began in 1995 after she did some contractor work for the Chamber as part of her work with Chamber of Commerce organizations across the country. Testa, as president of Chamber Development Services, has worked in more than 550 communities in the country as a consultant during the last 15 years.
"The people in Campbell are just super. This is a great community. This is like our adoptive home. This is the only festival you'll see me and my family work at. This town has a real community spirit. There's a togetherness and a caring that you don't see in very many towns," Testa says.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Worker Bees: Campbell Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Betty Deal, center, is accompanied by Joan Testa, left, and Lisa Furia with A&R Booth Rentals.
"It's one of my favorite Chambers. A Chamber is only as good as its leadership, its staff and most especially the business leadership, which works together for a common good; and when you have a group of people who unselfishly give of their time, energy, expertise, money thoughts and beliefs and all bond together for a common cause, that's the makeup of a good Chamber."
Testa says that although there are hundreds of wonderful festivals in Silicon Valley, none compare to the PruneFestival. "This is a special gem in the midst of the big city," she says. "It's a little community where everybody cares about each other."
Campbell resident Jon Smith, 24, attends the PruneFestival to support his friend's family who participates in the entertainment portion of the event. "It's a great chance to support the small businesses in the downtown area," he says.
Another festival-goer says, "I come for the food, the fun and the children's activities. One of the reasons we moved to Campbell was because of the community."
Live music, award-winning chefs and the introduction of "Little Pit," a special -edition Beanie Baby, got 6-year-old Maria Lorenzo and her family to the festival this year, as well as the event's usual assortment of arts and crafts, food and drink and the Kiddie Korner.
Sara Cilloni, who moved to Campbell recently, says she's been attending for many years and that the festival is one of the reasons "we wanted to be a part of this community."
Deal explains the festival's main purpose is to bring people to Campbell. "The Chamber's purpose is to promote the businesses in Campbell and we do everything we can accomplish that goal. The businesses make money, not necessarily the day of the festival, but when people come back after the event."
Deal doesn't want to reveal exactly how much the Chamber has made from past festivals, but she says she's starting this one with a $50,000 debt over her head that she must pay. "Whether nobody shows up, pours rain or is 102 degrees, those bills still have to be paid," she adds. "We want to make a profit to benefit Campbell businesses."
During the last two years, Deal says, the festival hasn't been as profitable as in years past because of hot weather. Saturday was an extremely successful day for the event, but Sunday's cloudy, rainy weather reduced festival participation.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Cute Souvenirs: 'Little Pit' special edition Beanie Babies were a hit at the festival.
Asked what motivates her passion for and commitment to the Chamber and the community, Deal says, "You hear a lot of people say 'Find something you love to do and you'll enjoy doing it and that's been true for me."
Deal spent most of her career in the corporate world, but was laid off and went into the insurance business, joining the Chamber to promote her business. "I realized I enjoyed the Chamber more than I did my business. I became involved with the Chamber because it's helping people and helping the community, because I dearly love Campbell."
She adds: "In my opinion, the Campbell community and the people in it is what all America should be like."
And Testa says, "You can't buy this kind of public relations. There's no money in this."
Sunday evening, with vendors trying to finish their work and clean out their booths, the festival scene looked more like a mad scurry. Everyone looked tired and wanted to go home.
But the Chamber's volunteers, headed by Deal, were picking up every piece of paper on the streets, moving barricades, emptying booths, recounting and restocking inventory and cleaning up the mess created by festival participants.
It's now 8 p.m. and there are no traces of the festival left behind.
"It's like doing a house party. You clean up, prepare, the guests come, they enjoy two hours and then you still have six hours of cleaning to do," Deal says.
"The volunteers work like slave labor, getting paid nothing other than the satisfaction that they did something good for the community."
Campbell, California
