The event featured local restaurants, small businesses and non-profits
By RORY CONLON — rhconlon@ucdavis.edu
The Davis Food Co-op hosted their Halloween Block Party open to Davis community members on Oct. 26. The event featured booths from local businesses and organizations, Halloween-themed activities and live music from the Davis-based band Cowboys After Dark.
The block party is one of two events the Davis Food Co-op, the only locally owned and operated grocery store in the city, holds each year. Lilliana Agredano, the marketing manager for the Co-op, said the Halloween-themed event has expanded since they started it two years ago.
“Years ago, it was mainly a gathering where we gave private invitations to members,” Agredano said. “Part of our [purpose] is to be a gathering space for the community, so that’s [why] we decided to expand it to be a bigger event and invite the whole community.”
Agredano said the Co-op started reaching out to local businesses four months before the event.
“We make sure to promote small and local businesses,” Agredano said. “So, if any of them want to come out — like The Hive, The Growing Groves or Kindness Thrift [Mobile Shoppe] — we welcome them. It’s all free for vendors, and our main purpose is to bring the community together.”
Besides local businesses, non-profit organizations like the Yolo County Library also had booths at the event. Xochilt Romo, who tabled for the Yolo County Library, said it was her first time at the block party.
“It’s way bigger than I expected,” Romo said. “It’s only been like an hour, and to be honest, I didn’t expect this many people because it’s such a small parking lot. It’s completely packed.”
On their table, the library offered candy to trick-or-treaters as well as Halloween-themed bubbles, pencils and stress balls. Romo said she wanted to promote the library’s weekday and weekend programs to kids attending the block party.
“We call them Sunday Fundays because we always host something different — sometimes it’s movies and sometimes we have crafts,” Romo said. “We have beaded jewelry for the Indigenous [Storytime and Craft], Reading Buddies, Makerspace and tutoring for the kids. I know we’re very popular, especially because we’re surrounded by schools.”
The Graduate Students Association (GSA) at UC Davis also ran a booth at the event. Sicily Lerner, the secretary for the organization, said she wanted to provide more information and support to graduate students at UC Davis.
“We want to help better build community and get grad students out and into the city,” Lerner said. “I know that it’s really hard for that to happen when you’re in graduate school, so we’re hoping this is just another way to get people out and about, especially working to support local businesses.”
Lerner said that in addition to handing out pens and stickers at the event, the GSA also displayed a pizza cutter on their table to advertise the food and basic needs pantry for graduate students.
“We’ve also partnered with the Co-op, which has generously donated a basket full of food and other goodies that we’re raffling off to all graduate students and professional students at Davis,” Lerner said. “It’s a whole mixture of all sorts of things the Co-op has put together for us — there’s tea, snacks and other things for cooking, like olive oil.”
The event also featured Halloween-themed activities that included a costume contest, pumpkin decorating contest, squash fest sampling and a photo booth for people to get photos with their costumes on. Local band Cowboys After Dark played covers of “Thriller,” “Electric Slide” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” for people on the dance floor.
Kyra Cvitanich, a fourth-year communications major, first heard about the block party through one of her friends. She said she liked Cowboys After Dark’s rock cover of “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
“I thought they were really good,” Cvitanich said. “They surprised me because I typically don’t see a saxophone and a trumpet in a band. I thought it was really neat that they were able to blend those instruments into rock in a new way.”
Cvitanich said she explored several booths at the event, including a booth for The Growing Groves Plant Shop and Unitrans. She said community events like the block party bring out a different side of Davis.
“I think they represent togetherness, like a chance to meet your neighbors, to have fun and be in community with each other,” Cvitanich said. “It’s not very often that you get to see people come together in this way except for moments like [this].”
Written By: Rory Conlon — rhconlon@ucdavis.edu
