Festival presents blend of tradition, art and wellness

La Ofrenda Dia de los Muertos and wellness fair attracts thousands during its inaugural run in Gilroy

Under cloudless blue skies, young mariachi performers blanketed downtown Gilroy in harmonies, accompanying the thousands of visitors who danced, haggled, and dined at La Ofrenda festival this Saturday. While the festival is only in its inaugural year, attendees say it fills a much-needed space in the South Bay, and organizers hope it is just the first of many to come.

“People have been yearning for this,” said festival attendee and Hayward resident Christina FletesRomo. “It's great to have an event like this in Gilroy, (a place) that's often overlooked.”

The event, billed as Gilroy's inaugural Dia de los Muertos and wellness fair, featured more than 80 booths of artists, vendors, and community organizations. Children rode around a “bike rodeo” course, former farm workers found job assistance from local nonprofits and foodies sipped on aguas frescas and munched on tacos. Meanwhile, other attendees took advantage of free health check ups, paid their respects to deceased loved ones at over a dozen hand-built altars,

and viewed a massive offering called La Gran Ofrenda, built by a cohort of local artists.

The blend of typical festival fare with arts, community resources and tradition was deliberate.

“The intention was bridging the gap between arts, culture, and wellness and being able to address all parts of our humanity,” said Rubén Dario Villa, the lead organizer of the event.

The seeds of the festival were planted by a group of Gilroy artists known as the the Gilroy Arts Roundtable, a group first brought together by the Silicon Valley arts nonprofit SV Creates. “We all felt like there's been a gap in bringing the community together since we lost the Garlic Festival,” said Dario Villa. “We've all kind of been looking for ways to fill that void in a beautiful way.”

A gunman killed three people in a mass shooting at the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival and it wasn't held in 2020 because of the pandemic. In 2022, the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association announced the large festival was can

PHOTOS BY RAY CHAVEZ — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Tonantzin Salcedo, 6, of Gilroy, walks past the La Gran Ofrenda altar displayed on 5th Street during the inaugural La Ofrenda Festival that celebrates Dia de los Muertos in downtown Gilroy on Saturday.

An altar honoring the victims of the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting is displayed on 5th Street during the La Ofrenda Festival.

Leroy Gonsalez, of Gilroy, honors the occasion during the festival on Saturday.