The first annual Elderberry Festival is a fun and free community event. The event welcomes people of all ages to come out to enjoy the morning while learning about ‘s , a magnificent California native plant which provides, food, medicine, and building material. The elderberry has been used by California indigenous peoples for millennia and continues to be used to this day. Elderberries are used by peoples around the world.
The Elderberry Festival includes free activities, cultural demonstrations, and free snacks and beverages. You can choose from arts and craft activities, observing the creation of clapsticks, listening to a teen drum circle group, and or taking pictures in garden or photobooths. The gardens are within a City of Porterville public park along the Tule River just west of Jaye Street. Enter the park’s parking lot at the south bank of the Tule River directly across Jaye Street from Harbor Freight. This is north of the Jaye Street and Springville Drive intersection.
The Native Star Foundation is providing the clapstick workshop demonstration and bringing their teen drum circle. Clapsticks are a traditional Yokut percussion instrument made from elderberry sticks. The Tule River Parkway garden adopters are assisting with the event. Come and try your hand at rock painting, making paper poppies, blow art, spin art, have your face painted, and sit in the shade to color elderberry design pages. There are displays of elderberry products and foods made from elderberry.
The event starts at 9am with an opening and drum circle performance to welcome visitors to the event. At 10:00am there is a docent lead elderberry plant walk available. Special guests have been invited to perform at 11. At 11:45 there is a closing ceremony. Throughout the three hours visitors can try their hand at a variety of arts and crafts stations and demonstrations or enjoy a shady snack area.
Elderberries grow on every continent except Antarctica and have been used and consumed for through the millennia by the peoples living around the world. They are small, dark berries which grow on tall shrubs in clusters. Elderberry shrubs act as a keystone habitat, providing crucial food and shelter for a wide variety of wildlife. From insects feeding on pollen to mammals browsing the foliage, the entire plant is utilized in distinct ways by different animals.
The event is sponsored by Porterville Kiwanis, Vesper Mineral King Renewable Energy, Beneficial State Bank, Costco, and Tulare County Heath and Human Services through the Summer Night Lights grant. Contact Cathy Capone at tulerivergarden@gmail.com if you want to help at an event station or want information.