For 76 years, the Ocean Beach Kiwanis Club\u2019s annual Kite Festival has been a community tradition treating participants to free kite building and flying.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s free festival is Saturday, May 20 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at Robb Field. The family-friendly event offers kite games for kids in all age groups and includes food trucks, craft fair vendors, and community information booths. Kids\u2019 kites are judged in numerous categories and prizes are awarded.<\/p>\n
The festival is sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Ocean Beach serving beach communities since 1928. Kiwanis is a global volunteer organization dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main activity is the same as it has always been \u2013 children are taught how to make and fly a kite,\u201d said OB Kiwanian Melanie Nickel who, along with her husband Jim, are longtime kite festival organizers. \u201cNowadays there are also spectacular demonstrations of kite ballet and other stunts by professional kite fliers. There is music, food, and a small off-street street fair. We believe it is the oldest kite festival for children in the United States. It has become a multi-generational tradition, with former participants bringing their children and grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Jim Nickel, now chairman of the event, attended the first OB Kite Festival in 1948. \u201cI was in kindergarten at Warren-Walker Elementary,\u201d he said adding the event left a \u201cvivid impression. You can imagine the first time a child ever flies a kite \u2013 it\u2019s something that makes a big impression on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big event, and this year we have a lot of help putting it on,\u201d said Melanie Nickel adding, \u201cThe Ocean Beach Woman’s Club has been partnering with us in all aspects of the event. We hope they will become co-sponsors of the festival starting next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kellee Waters, who is the granddaughter of the late Marion Miller, who kept the OB Kite Festival going for decades, and was referred to as the \u201cKite Lady,\u201d agreed the kite fest is a proud \u2013 and fun \u2013 tradition. \u201cI first attended in 1974 when I was at OB Elementary and it was a blast,\u201d she said. Waters joked that she and others were so taken by the event that afterward, \u201cOur whole lives revolved around saving the toilet paper rolls that went into making and flying the kites.\u201d<\/p>\n
Waters added the Nickels are better-prepared organizers for the kite festival than her grandmother was, whose approach was more freeform.\u201cWith her (Miller) it was really just everything coming together at the last moment like a whirlwind,\u201d Waters said. \u201cShe would always be praying that the weather would always turn out good and it always did. I don\u2019t know how she did it: She must have had a deal with the man upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jim Nickel talked about the kite festival\u2019s purpose. \u201cIt\u2019s never been a fundraiser,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s always been a give-back to the community, a free event benefiting the greater OB area including Pacific Beach, Midway, and Point Loma. This was always meant as a pure service project, at no cost to the participants, teaching them how to make and fly kites.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jim Nickel noted the kite fest has always had a touch of whimsy. \u201cIn the early days, we even had a kite parade down Newport,\u201d he said. \u201cIn those days, they (organizers) supplied free food, hot dogs, buns, relish, and other condiments.\u201d He added he has instructed kids and adults \u201chundreds of times\u201d on how to assemble and fly their kites.<\/p>\n
Dozens of teens who are Key Club members, a high school service organization, will help assemble kites. San Diego Kite Club will fill the sky with amazing kites, perform kite ballets, and stage kid\u2019s kite games. As she\u2019s done for decades, Obecian Claudia Jack will serve as the “Kite Doctor.” Carol Ladiges, owner of Lighthouse Ice Cream, is again donating prizes for the kite-decorating contest and games.<\/p>\n
KITE FESTIVAL<\/p>\n
When: Saturday, May 20 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.<\/p>\n
Where: Robb Field, 2525 Bacon St.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For 76 years, the Ocean Beach Kiwanis Club\u2019s annual Kite Festival has been a community tradition treating participants to free kite building and flying. This year\u2019s free festival is Saturday, May 20 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at Robb Field. The family-friendly event offers kite games for kids in all age groups and includes food trucks, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":840,"featured_media":324628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"For 76 years, the Ocean Beach Kiwanis Club\u2019s annual kite festival has been a community tradition treating participants to free kite building and flying.","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15458,15462,15489,15494],"tags":[15986,15987,15501,12758],"class_list":["post-324625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peninsula-beacon-arts-entertainment","category-peninsula-beacon-news","category-sdnews-arts-entertainment","category-sdnews-news","tag-kite-festival","tag-ocean-beach-kiwanis-club","tag-ocean-beach-womans-club","tag-robb-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324625","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\/840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324629,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324625\/revisions\/324629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}