The Fit and Fun Earth Day Fair drew an estimated 2,000 people to the Columbia Community Center Sunnyvale.
Hilltromper staff
The Fit and Fun Earth Day Fair at the Columbia Neighborhood Center on April 25 would make anyone feel optimistic about the future. A celebration of wellness, conservation, and outdoor fun, it featured hundreds of smiling faces, mostly smiling kids, who climbed a rock-studded wall, got free helmets and bike check-ups, watched a couple of pro BMX riders do awesome tricks. and rode in a bike rodeo with motorcycle cops.
Event organizer Alicia Gilliam (who wisely rebranded the "Health and Safety Fair" three years ago, and combined it with an Earth Day celebration for the first time this year) estimates that 2,000 people attended this year's event--slightly more than in years past.
"It was great to have so many people, as well as 68 non-profits, public agencies and businesses, out celebrating health, safety, community wellness, and green living, too," Gilliam says.
The Fit and Fun Fair may have been designed to promote healthy choices, but it was easy to see that, to the kids, it was just an awesome day with a happy group outside. We were set up all day next to a booth designed to teach children about recycling and composting. Sounds deadly boring, right? Well, all day long, little kids (like, 3 to 7) lined up to grab sandbags marked with notes such as "soda can" or "corn cob," and toss them through targets marked "recycle" or "compost." A little silly, but also a little genius.
For bigger kids, the bike rodeo was a popular destination. Run by the youth safety company Safe Moves and sponsored by Sunnyvale Public Safety, this was the event that started it all 25 years ago. As bike-wranglers herded the riders around the course, shouting instructions ("head up! look right and left!") the kids clearly were enjoying the challenge. They also clearly got a kick out of the fact that officers on huge motorcycles were riding the course with them.
Equally awesome, bike-safety wise, was the booth giving away free helmets, donated by Sunnyvale Public Safety, the County Traffic Safe Community Network, and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. And right next door, Bob Cormia of Calabazas Cycling, did free safety inspections and minor repairs for all comers.
"Mostly it was brakes," Cormia says. "Adjusted cables, replaced cables. If a wheel was out of true so the brakes didn't work correctly, I put a spoke-wrench on it. I had a pile of remnant tubes; I fixed some flats with those. All day, I saw only one bike that was un-repairable."
Cormia is co-owner, with his wife Mary and son Rob, of Calabazas Cycling, which has been in the same location on Bollinger Road for 26 years. Obviously, he's your guy when its time to get your tyke her first bike, or first BMX bike, or a mountain bike for yourself. And that's a plug, and he deserves it.
A Green Scene
Many local and regional non-profits set up booths for the event. The Mid-Peninsula Open Space District (simply "Mid-Pen" to its friends) showed up with a gorgeous taxidermied gray fox and told people about the 62,000 acres and 26 open space preserves it manages, including some of our favorite places. (An excellent, easy-access MidPen property, co-managed with Santa Clara County Parks. is the Rancho San Antonio Park and Open Space Preserve.
The good folks from Palo Alto Medical Foundation's 5210 Program were on hand, delivering this awesomely simple formula for health:
5: Aim for 5 fruits and vegetables every day
2: Keep recreational screen time to 2 hours or less every day
1: Include at least 1 hour or more of active play every day
0: Skip sugar sweetened beverages
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