CAEP Fest West: International Night Out

Now that things have settled back down after CAEP Fest West, we wanted to take a moment to share about our latest event! All of our current CAEP participants were invited to join us in Half Moon Bay, CA for CAEP Fest West. After our first CAEP Fest event (held last July in Minnesota), we wanted to give our participants on the West Coast the opportunity to join other CAEP participants for a weekend getaway.

As the participants began to arrive, we knew that this event was going to be a blast. Everyone was ready to have a good time and relax as harvest finished up. While many of our participants arrived in groups, we wanted to make sure that everyone took full advantage of meeting new people. Everyone grabbed a partner (someone they didn’t know) and a pumpkin. The pumpkins varied in size. By a lot.

Now, if you didn’t know, Half Moon Bay is the known as the “Pumpkin Capital.” So, how could we not do an activity involving a pumpkin? As everyone formed two lines, facing their partner, participants quickly realized what the game was: a friendly pumpkin toss. After each toss, one partner took a big step back. Needless to say, those with the larger pumpkins were generally the first ones to see pumpkin seeds all over the ground.

After an afternoon of kickball, rugby, Frisbee, and soccer, we reconvened, kicking off the evening with our wine tasting event! First of all, we have to take a minute to say a huge thank you to our CAEP hosts, who made this event possible! Many of our host wineries donated wine for the winetasting and Lepori Dairy Farm donated cheese for the entire event! We could not have done this event without the support from our hosts.

With so participants representing different countries at CAEP Fest West, we turned our wine tasting into a big International Night Out! Community members of Half Moon Bay were invited to join us at our winetasting, giving them the opportunity to, not only taste different wines, but also to learn about the wine that our participants had a hand in creating! It was great to see so many of our participants sharing their knowledge of wines from around the world and their culture with community members.

It wouldn’t have been a true International Night Out without music from around the world! Our DJ kept the energy flowing in the large tent with song suggestions from our trainees, while karaoke took place inside of Cameron’s Pub.

On Sunday morning, we all woke up to the smell of pancakes thanks to the Half Moon Bay Lion’s Club! As everyone sat down to eat, we gave away a couple door prizes, including an iPad and trip to Las Vegas, which were donated by the Communicating for Agriculture Foundation.

Thank you to everyone who made this event possible! We hope that we can continue to host these cultural events in the future!