If you drive down Shaw Avenue this weekend, follow your nose to Vintage Days at Fresno State, where Senior Uriel Melendez is cooking up pulled pork sandwiches with the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.
Vintage Days is a three-day festival held on the Fresno State campus that includes live entertainment, food, games, a beer and wine garden, and more than 120 vendors selling arts and crafts, clothing, décor items, gourmet food products, jewelry, and yard and garden items.
Melendez said the festival is a chance for student organizations like his to raise money. Last year his fraternity raised more than $3,000 and they expect to double that number this weekend. He said they raise funds to keep the chapter going and to help them do philanthropic work around the community.
Melendez estimated his fraternity would sell about 1,000 pulled pork sandwiches per day. “We’re almost out of bread, so we’re going to have to get more bread!”
Assistant Student Director, Ramiro Merino, said Vintage Days is a tradition for Fresno State that started in 1975 and continues to allow the community to visit the campus and enjoy what the university has to offer.
“We are carrying the tradition of pride and community and having fun,” Merino said.
Merino said he expects at least 50,000 people to visit Fresno State this weekend for Vintage Days.
Claudia Scott brought her two daughters Helen, 12, and Penelope, 2, to Vintage Days for the first time to support the students at Fresno State.
“I really like that it’s student booths, and we are giving back to the students of Fresno State.”
So far the Scott family had tried cinnamon rolls, chicken tostadas and Hawaiian shaved ice.
“I think there is something for everybody here,” Scott said. “There’s sports memorabilia, there’s clothes, there’s jewelry, there’s stuff for the kids, there’s all kinds of food and there’s free parking, so you can’t beat that!”
Vintage Days runs Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
Contact Drew Phelps
Phone: 559-440-8321 / e-mail
This story was not subject to the approval of Granville Homes.
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