The Long Beach Youth Festival celebrates the youth by bringing a fun-filled day of entertainment, free food, workshops, activities, and resource fair to the Billie Jean King main library and Lincoln Park on Saturday. Bringing a full house of friends and families to explore, play and learn.
The festival was swarming with people visiting various booths to learn about all the different programs and resources available, playing games, and enjoying entertainment.
The event was filled with plenty of things to do, from making friendship bracelets, planting a plant, acting in costume at the mini theater, a bounce house, and oversize connect four.
The kids and young adults had an opportunity for a hands-on interactive experience that envisioned what they would like to see in their community with the build and design of Ocean Ave.
The festival even had a self defense workshop, an area for some pet therapy, a drum circle, and some poetry.
Festival goers were even able to receive a complimentary goodie bag and enter raffles for free merchandise.
Long Beach City College also participated by having two booths at the youth festival.
Jesse Marroquin and Raymond Villareal ran the booth for the LBCC Phoenix Scholars, which is a new program that helps gang-impacted youth between the ages 16-24 with free tuition, books, supplies, and several other benefits.
“I am the program director for the Phoenix Scholars, which is a new program that started last year, and I also run the Basic Needs Program at LBCC, so if you know anyone that needs any help send them my way,” Marroquin said.
Samantha Cruz, Jessica Ferlazzo, and Yesenia Gomez, were in the other booth for the Office of Outreach and Recruitment, sharing educational opportunities, resources, and a variety of services offered to prospective LBCC students.
“It’s been a busy day,” Cruz said, “We’ve had a lot of people asking questions because there are great programs where they can get college for free.”
Ian Pamintuan walked around with his daughter exploring all the different booths.
“I’m really impressed how they put all this together, a lot of great activities for the kids and programs that can help foster their learning,” Pamintuan said.
The main activities and workshops that were put on in this event, were developed with help from the Long Beach Youth & Young Adults Strategic Plan (YSP). These youth ambassadors are voices for the youth community of Long Beach.
A hand-full of city departments throughout Long Beach helped contribute to the success of the second annual Youth Festival, so if you missed it this year, be on the look out for next years festivities.