RECREATION

2011 Tamale Fesival

Ester, Elaine and Sandy

Volunteers - table wipers and passing out schedules

Volunteer - check in for the Tamale Festival

Best Tamale Judging for 2011 for 5 different categories.

The Riverside County Fair & National Date Festival

The few days of rain could not detour fairgoers from attending the 65th Annual Riverside County Fair & National Date Festival. This year, the Date Festival was just shy of breaking the all-time attendance record set in 2010 - 307,700 people came through the gates during the ten day event in 2011. The attendance figures are attributed to the growing success of the Fair as it continues to be pocket friendly. For less than the price of a movie ticket, families were able to enjoy shows, arena events and amazing Headliner Entertainment that included Third Eye Blind, Kellie Pickler, Luz Rios and Swithchfoot! The Fair continues to add new and exciting exhibits to the Fair. This year fairgoers were able to see an Arabian themed sand sculpture being built during the Fair. While the Wizard Challenge produced quite the buzz with kids going through the various obstacles in the Gem and Mineral Building. At include Me, Inc. at our Guest Services office in the Taj Mahal building, some volunteers taught fairgoers how to make paper flowers to the young and all. Join us next year as we celebrate our 66th Anniversary! Mark your calendars! The Riverside County Fair & National Date Festival is set for February 17 - 26, 2012!

Halloween Party: Picture taken from our Halloween Party in Indio Gardens! We served Delicious Cardenas Market food to our guests, had card and costume contests, and karaoke. It was a rousing success.?Halloween Story: This year around Halloween, we hosted a Halloween Party in Indio Gardens. All who lived there were welcome to come. We held a card contest, a costume contest judged by scariness and originality, and a raffle drawing with free tickets given to Indio Gardens Residents! Of course, we had many valuable prizes to give out for these events. Many people talked with each other over dinner, learning many things from each other. We also invited several political figures to the party as well. Over all we feel it helped further build our beautiful cities community, gave the previously mentioned politicians a chance to speak with voters, and gave all who attended a very fun night!

Tamale Festival happened on first weekend of December. Similar every year the Festival opens always with a grand parade which goes up and down King and Oasis streets, it is vey popular for the locals to see and to participate as well! In the sky, you could see an array of colorful pinatas swaying back and forth ready to be hit. This year the best overall tamale came from La Quinta Hotel, Adobe Grills Tamales. They also won for Best Gourmet Commercial. Jackalope won first for Traditional Commercial. Our volunteers not only helped during the festival but also came a couple days before as well for set up! The volunteer groups also did a magnificent job at passing out programs around the event grounds and answering questions that visitors had at our Guest Services.

The Jacqueline Chochran Air Show was held on November 6, 2010 in Thermal CA. This year Include Me Inc. guest services booth was placed in a bad location in the mud and dirt. So those of us who ride in wheelchairs, scooters, it was difficult to maneuver around to actually help other persons of disABILITES and seniors. Our location was not a very accessible to those in visiting and wanting to know more about Include Me, Inc. According to one of our Volunteers she noticed many different types of cultures attending the event, and stated there were different size and colorful planes flying through the sky. For the kids, there were games and bouncy toys to jump and swing from the rides. Picture taken of our special shuttles at the Jacqueline Cochran air show in thermal, delivering disabled or senior citizens to where they want to be. We also gave out information to curious visitors. We helped a lot of people see the planes.

Click on photos to get information on the event.