Two months after the second annual North PB Sip ’N’ Stroll business street fair, the beach community continues to benefit as proceeds from the sale of event hats continues as a fundraiser for Pacific Beach Elementary School.
Demand for trademark hats sold at the Sip ’N’ Stroll was so great that a second batch is now for sale through at least the end of the year, with half the proceeds benefiting Friends of Pacific Beach Elementary. The nonprofit is responsible for funding most of the school’s non-district-funded activities and programs.
“We did 200 hats selling for $10 at the stroll and we sold out,” said Mike Spangler of Spangler Event Productions Inc., who masterminded the Sip ’N’ Stroll as a way to help local merchants while distinguishing North Pacific Beach from the rest of the community. “My daughter is now going to PB Elementary, and they have a great [activist] group which raised almost $100,000 that went to art, music and Spanish at the school.”
Ever since the Stroll in August, Spangler said he’s been getting “an email a day from people saying they want more hats.
“So I decided to turn it into a school fundraiser,” said Spangler, noting he’s turned out another 300 Sip ‘N’ Stroll hats that, when sold at $20 apiece with $10 going back to the school, will generate $3,000 to help schoolchildren.
“I’ve already sold 50 hats,” Spangler said just a couple days after launching the school fundraiser.
North Pacific Beach is loosely defined as the area of the beach community north of the Grand and Garnet avenues commercial district, bounded by Felspar Street on the south, Turquoise Street on the north, Mission Boulevard on the west and Ingraham Street on the east.
Conceptually, Sip ’N’ Stroll was created to merge the “sip” of wine tasting at Turquoise Cellars with a “stroll” down a family-friendly, business-marketing street fair.
Spangler said Sip ’N’ Stroll will continue to be a very “hyperlocal, grassroots effort,” promoting both brick-and-mortar and at-home local businesses in accounting, financial services, digital marketing and numerous other growing fields.
North PB commemorative hats can be purchased at Gallery At Land’s End at 4984 Cass St. and Sunglass Boutique at 904 Turquoise St. They can also be purchased online at www.skooltopia.com.