Annual Mermaid Festival to be held June 23

The Canyon Lake Woman’s Club welcomes all mermaids, mermen and pirates to its 4th annual Mermaid Festival on Saturday, June 23, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Indian Beach. This free community-wide event will feature the ever-popular Cardboard Boat Challenge, Knobbly Knees Contest, costume competitions, Best Dressed Booth Contest, Mermaid Grotto with photo opportunities with mermaids, opportunity drawings, silent auction, grand prize drawings, games and crafts for children, vendors and food booths.

This year’s costume competitions include Best Dressed Mermaid, Best Dressed Junior Mermaid, Best Dressed Junior Pirate and the popular Knobbly Knees Contest. The winners will be awarded $25.

The Cardboard Boat Challenge also offers cash prizes for the winners. For more information, see the Cardboard Boat Challenge article in this issue.

The prizes for the grand prize drawing include an Aqua Lily Pad, kids kayak and three $100 cash prizes. Tickets are $5 each.

Vendors interested in a booth should contact Rose Marie Hand at 951-212-1946. Single vendor booths are $40; double booths are $80. One vendor will be awarded $50 for Best Dressed Booth.

Donations in the form of items and certificates are being sought for the silent auction and opportunity drawings. The donation deadline is June 15.

The club is also seeking sponsorship for its Mermaid Grotto. The Mermaid Grotto is always the centerpiece of the mermaid festival. It sits center stage an d provides festival guests the opportunity to take photos with mermaids.

All the decorations are made from scratch, using spray foam, Styrofoam sheets, glue, etc. Since the inception of the festival in 2015, improvements have been made to the grotto by adding pieces as the club could afford.

For the first time, the club is seeking a sponsor that would be prepared to underwrite the cost of more pieces and/or contribute to making it bigger and better in some way.

The Canyon Lake Woman’s Club is a non-profit, non-partisan, philanthropic service organization that was founded in 1972. The club hosts several events throughout the year to help raise money for local charities and student scholarships. In 2017, the club donated $15,000 in scholarships and $16,000 to local charities. This year, the club is on target to give away $42,000.

For more information about the Mermaid Festival, contact Jan May at 951-970-8333. For sponsorship information, contact Tammy Stone at 909-223-4999.