Seventeen local non-profits have already committed to participate in the second annual Southland Credit Union Sugar Beet Festival and 5k-ish Sugartown Challenge, which will take place on June 7 at The Shops at Rossmoor and the streets of Old Town Los Alamitos.
The event will again kick off in the morning with the 5k-ish Sugartown Challenge, which features obstacles like haystacks, giant slides, and tire walls, a human car wash and more. The course was not only great fun for the entire family but raised money and awareness for over twenty local nonprofits and school groups in the West OC and East Long Beach areas last year. Each group can earn up to half of the $40 registration fee for any runner they sign up in the Challenge. Plus by registering to sign up runners, each group gets free booth space at the event.
Among the groups signed on are Lee Elementary (Project LEAP), Pathways Volunteer Hospice, Boy Scout Troop #167, the Seal Beach Historical Society and Red Car Museum, the Cypress Boys and Girls Club, Grace Counseling group, Friends of the Los Alamitos-Rossmoor Library, and the Los Alamitos High School’s lacrosse, girls soccer and boys tennis and volleyball teams.
The start and finish for the Challenge will be at The Shops at Rossmoor but much of the race follows the same course through Old Town Los Alamitos as last year – including running through the Trend Offset Printing site, and facing obstacles at the Archery Outpost, Champions Quest, Kidnastics, Deft Touch Soccer, Sir Speedy, CI Solutions, CrossFit Seal Beach (the Los Al location) to name a few. After running about a 1k through the haystacks, walls and slides at The Shops, runners are shuttled via the double decker red party buses to the Old Town Los Al leg for the middle leg of the race and then back.
The event is again hosted by The Community & Schools Media Partnership, but joining them as co-hosts will be Los Al’s local organizers of the Taste for Los Al, which has earned $1.8 million for Los Alamitos High School groups since 2001.
The festival will again feature the goods of many local merchants and vendors, food from local restaurants, and good entertainment from local bands and youth choirs and dance groups. The cooking contest (using sugar beets supplied by the Spreckels company) will return and be joined by a few more competitions throughout the event including a pie-eating contest, a photography contest, and a Sugar Beet Queen competition.
Youth performing groups, non-profits and vendors or anyone else interested in participating in the event (or getting more information) can go to www.sugarbeetfestival.com or call Diana Hill at 310-720-7677 or Larry Strawther at 562-522-6670. Registration for the 5k-ish challenge is also now open at the web site as well.
