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<\/a>They\u2019re making bowls to sell for the SoNo Fest and Chili Cook-Off, an annual fundraiser for McKinley Elementary School that takes place Dec. 1st. The bowls are sold for $20 each and act as the ticket to try five different chilis made by North and South Park restaurants. All proceeds go to the McKinley Foundation. Last year, Shimazaki made 1,515. They were all gone in under two hours.<\/p>\n
Clearly, a measly 1,200 bowls wouldn\u2019t suffice for this year\u2019s fest, which he expected to far exceed all others in terms of raw numbers and chili consumption. He decided to take drastic measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to have an emergency second throw-a-thon,\u201d Shimazaki said. \u201cThis is the first in history that we had to have two throw-a-thons.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second, emergency throw-a-thon brought Shimazaki\u2019s bowl count up to 1,700. He still expects to sell out, but it puts him at a comfortable level.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s chili fest invites 30 restaurants from the area to bring 10 gallons of the best chili they can muster, which will then be judged by a panel of San Diego celebrities such as Interim Mayor Todd Gloria, Congressmember Susan Davis and representatives from San Diego breweries. For amateur chili enthusiasts, there\u2019s also the community chili competition, where 30 to 50 community members will show up with a crockpot of their own concoction. These will also be available to the stomachs of the public.<\/p>\n
If chili-tasting for the cause isn\u2019t your idea of a good time, a bountiful beer garden full of donated local brews and wine will be on hand. The festival is located in T-32\u2014that\u2019s the nickname for the tight-knit group of businesses at the intersection of Thorn Street and 32nd Avenue and most of those businesses will be donating a quarter of their sales to McKinley as well.<\/p>\n
If chili and fine beverages still aren\u2019t enticing enough, the music lineup should be. The two-stage affair will feature Gregory Page along with many local favorites, such as The Nards, The Creepy Creeps, and El Monte Slim running throughout the day.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s installment attracted an estimated 10,000 people, which is a startling number considering this is a neighborhood school fundraiser. It serves as a testament of its necessity and the widespread enthusiasm surrounding it.<\/p>\n
The chili cook-off was started as a casual get-together at year\u2019s end at Shimazaki\u2019s SDCC, and stayed as simply an opportunity for friendly culinary competition rather than school fundraising for a number of years.<\/p>\n
Then, about eight years ago, Shimazaki\u2019s son began kindergarten down the street at McKinley Elementary School. To a father involved in the arts, the lack of funding the school received for art programs was worrying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized when he started going there that there was no arts in the school \u2026 and I just didn\u2019t want that to be the case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
So Shimazaki started an after-school ceramics program \u00a0for his son\u2019s kindergarten class.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen word got out in the school, so people would approach me saying \u2018I heard you\u2019re doing that with Ms. Applebee\u2019s class and do you think we could do that too?\u2019\u201d Shimazaki recalled. \u201cSo it got to be bigger and bigger, and then sure enough, in six months the whole school wanted to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and his studio were now volunteering a large amount of materials and time to this now-sizable program, and Shimazaki realized he needed a bit of help. After approving his idea to begin fundraising with Principal Julie Ashton-Gray, he began incorporating his handcrafted bowls into the cook-off, donating the proceeds to his after-school program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started out with just 40 bowls, then 100 bowls, then 200 bowls, then now sure enough last year we made an incredible number, 1,515 bowls in 6 hours,\u201d Shimazaki said.<\/p>\n
About 5 years ago, after the first SoNo Fest\u2014a craft and jewelry sale to fundraise for McKinley\u2014the two events were combined to form the expansive event seen today. Now, the huge amount of funding the event generates\u2014$34,000 last year\u2014goes toward a lot more than the ceramics program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely grown far beyond a school fundraiser,\u201d Event Chair Jen Byard said. \u201cIt\u2019s now much more of a community event that raises money for a school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byard has three boys attending McKinley. Having worked her way up the ladder of parental involvement to SoNo Fest\u2019s top organizational spot, she realizes how vital events like these are in counterbalancing public school underfunding.<\/p>\n
McKinley recently became a certified International\u00a0Baccalaureate school, which lets them offer this advanced educational program, but that comes along with some additional funding needs, like more language and arts staffing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got our designation three years ago,\u201d Byard said. \u201cIt\u2019s a long and arduous process, but once you get it, it\u2019s really great for kids. They get a lot from going to an IB school.\u201d<\/p>\n
The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 1, but both Shimazaki and Byard stressed that if you plan on trying the restaurant chili, you\u2019ll need to get there early. Shimazaki sold all his bowls by 1 p.m. last year, and Byard expects all the restaurant chili to be gone by 1:30.<\/p>\n
Shimazaki also recommends showing up for the presale event on Friday, Oct. 29 at SDCC, where you can have first pick of the finer crafted bowls. Beer, a larger selection of ceramics and art pieces, and possibly live music will also be present. You can also stop by the studio the next day from 10 a.m. \u2013 4 p.m. to guarantee yourself a bowl.<\/p>\n
Para obtener m\u00e1s informaci\u00f3n, vaya a sonofestchilicookoff.com<\/a>, follow @sonoparkfest on Twitter and Instagram @sonofest, or like their page age facebook.com\/soNoFestandChiliCookOff<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SoNo Fest and Chili Cook-off predicts its biggest year yet as McKinley\u2019s hit fundraiser By Hutton Marshall | SDUN Editor On a Friday evening every autumn, master Japanese potter Kouta Shimazaki attracts a crowd of friends, students and teachers to his ceramics studio and gallery, San Diego Ceramic Connection, for his yearly throw-a-thon. This group […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":246775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"300 gallons of chili for the kids","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}