Over 680 attendees and 100 volunteers at Todos Juntos Por Los Niños Children’s Festival
SANTA PAULA — Over 680 children and family members attended the Todos Juntos Por Los Niños Children’s Festival held at Glen City Elementary in Santa Paula on Saturday, Oct. 19. The event hosted by the Isabella Project was designed especially for children ages 0 to 5, creating a joyful space for hundreds of families to connect, play and learn about the vast array of support services available to them. The festival featured 48 booths from organizations across Ventura County, such as California State University, Channel Islands; Child Development Resources; First 5 Ventura County; kidSTREAM; Poder Popular and the Ventura County Office of Education. Families learned about the Isabella Project, early childhood resources, housing support, health services, extreme heat awareness, cultural engagement, free sports activities and much more.
“The Isabella Project is a truly beautiful partnership that seeks to provide all children in Santa Paula with access to high-quality, full-time early care and education that meets their families’ needs,” said Assemblymember Steve Bennett in a social media post following the event.
Bennett’s field representative Atticus Reyes spoke at the event, in addition to Santa Paula Mayor Leslie Cornejo and City Councilmember Andy Sobel, all of whom stressed the importance of the Isabella Project and early childhood education in the community.
“We owe this extraordinary day to the ‘heart work’ of over 100 volunteers who made this day possible,” said Dr. Gabino Aguirre, co-chair of the Isabella Project. “Together, we created a space for families to celebrate their children and each other. Thank you to everyone who helped transform this vision into a reality.”
Families also enjoyed a train attraction operated by the City of Santa Paula Parks & Recreation Department, food trucks and face painting, as well as live acts by baile folklórico dancers from Proyecto Esperanza, Inlakech Cultural Center’s Children’s Mariachi performers, Twin Tigers Taekwondo students, and White Rabbit Magic. To make the fall festival extra festive, Prancer’s Farm donated 100 pumpkins which lined the walkways leading guests to the party.
The free event was made possible by a $100,000 grant from the Resilience, Capacity Building, and Community Engagement Grant Program of the League of California Community Foundations to support trusted messenger organizations in promoting highest-quality early childhood education.
About the Isabella Project — The Isabella Project is a pilot project with the goal of ensuring all children in Santa Paula have access to high-quality, full-time early care and education that meets their families’ needs. First convened by the Ventura County Community Foundation in 2021, this group is now composed of over 120 community partners from across Ventura County and sectors ranging from higher education to childcare to mental healthcare and more. The project aims to be a model for creating a network of wrap-around care through pre-existing and new providers through the city that can be replicated in cities across the county. vccf.org/isabella-project