The Ceres Street Faire – Ceres’ biggest event of the year – is drawing near and organizers say this year’s event will be another good one.

Because weather is always iffy, the free weekend festival of May 2-3 is billed as a “rain or shine” event with most events in the past treated to mild temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s.

The Faire in downtown Ceres will include the staple activities Faire goers have come to expect: street vendors selling their goods, arts and crafts, commercial and information booths, food booth vendors operated by non-profit Ceres groups, local entertainment on two stages, a Saturday classic car show, a Sunday low rider show, and fun activities for kids to do in Whitmore Park.

The weekend event will kick off at 10 a.m. with a Saturday car show on Fourth Street between Magnolia and North streets. The car show will be over by 3 p.m. but the faire continues until 6 p.m.

The Faire resumes Sunday, May 7 at 10 a.m. with the low rider car show and ends at 5 p.m.

“We’re working with local classic car collectors as well as members of the low rider classic car community to ensure that we have great representation on both days,” said Street Faire Committee publicist Lisa Mantarro Moore.

Last year the Street Faire attracted 135 car entries which spilled over from Fourth Street onto the adjacent Community Center parking lot.

“We have amazing people in and around our community who put a lot of TLC in their vehicles and like to share that with us and it’s going to be fun.”

Car, truck and motorcycle owners can sign up for entries online at ceresstreetfaire.org. Pre-registration is $25 while registration that Saturday is $35. Show registration is from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday with awards at 3 p.m.

The Ceres Lions Club will be among the non-profit groups selling food at the event, in the Lions’ case being their popular barbecued beef tri-tip for sandwiches. A full army of other service clubs and youth groups will also be selling food items along Third Street on both days.

In Whitmore Park pony rides will be offered as well as carnival rides, including a giant slide. This year an additional kid zone area will be set up on Lawrence Street, mostly for families to give their kids something to do while the adults enjoy the live music acts.

The Street Faire entertainment line-up includes five bands – which are California Outlaws, Lavon & the Train Wreck and Emerson Biggens, all on Saturday; and Night Train and Ceres’ own country singer Greg Scudder on Sunday.

Ceres Karate students will be putting on karate demonstrations at various times and Steps Dance Studio dancers will be performing.

“We have a robust number of commercial and arts and crafts booths that we have had to create more space to accommodate the response that we’ve received from vendors.”

The Ceres Street Faire Committee, led by Chairman Bret Durossette, has been meeting since January to plan the event.

The Ceres Lions Club and Ceres Chamber of Commerce members founded the Ceres Street Faire in October 1988. The event was previously offered as the Peach Harvest Festival from Smyrna Park to downtown Ceres.

For more information on the Street Faire or to obtain car show entry forms, visit cereschamberofcommerce.org

Love Ceres coming soon

In preparation for the Ceres Street Faire, downtown will be getting a little spruced up during the Saturday, April 25 “Love Ceres” event.

Volunteers will be asked to show up at the 8 a.m. rally in Whitmore Park. The Ceres Lions Club has said it will cook breakfast burritos to give volunteers a nutritional start to their hours of work. Meyer said informational booths will be offered at the park as well. Plans are to offer fun games before the work starts.

Project work will begin at 9 a.m. at designated locations. Currently there are 12 projects which include:

• Ceres High School softball field clean-up (19 volunteers needed);
• Greeter at the Love Ceres gathering point with one volunteer needed;
• Volunteer photographers at Love Ceres (two volunteers needed);
• American Legion Memorial Building landscaping (nine volunteers needed);
• Writing cards of care for military veterans (18 volunteers needed)
• Writing cards of encouragement for incarcerated youth in Stanislaus County (13 more volunteers sought);
• Cleaning up “hot spots” in Ceres (16 volunteers needed);
• Cleaning up downtown Ceres (18 more volunteers needed);
• Working on a Hungry Caterpillar Garden. Four more volunteers are needed to paint 16 tires, then line them with gardener’s cloth, fill them with soil and plant vegetables for children in various programs to learn about the science of plants and how they grow;
• Performing yard work for seniors and shut-ins (19 more volunteers needed);
• Replacing worn American flags with new ones for various residents and properly retiring old flags (no additional volunteers needed);
• Ceres High School table painting (no additional volunteers needed);

Meyer said as of Monday 60 volunteers had signed up but 200 are desired,

Volunteers may sign up for work projects at the Love Ceres website (www.loveceres.com). Anyone with questions may email Brandy Meyer at meyercprandfa@aol.com. Those who pre-register can get a free Love Ceres T-shirt, otherwise they are $5.

She also is inviting non-profit or other groups to set up tables or booths to hand out information.

The Love Ceres website (www.loveceres.com) is where volunteers may sign up for a specific project.