Point Loma-OB Happenings: Kite Festival, Humane Society, ‘Mr. Point Loma,’ Wheelchair Regatta, more
OB Kite Festival to take to the sky May 21
The Kiwanis Club of Ocean Beach will present the annual OB Kite Festival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 21, at Robb Field, 2525 Bacon St., between the San Diego River and West Point Loma Boulevard.
The free event will include prizes for best-decorated kites by age category, kite-flying demonstrations, carnival rides and a craft fair. Youngsters will be taught how to make kites, with all materials supplied.
Entertainment and lunch will be provided.
Walk for Animals raises $300,000 for Humane Society
Dog walkers helped raise nearly $300,000 for the San Diego Humane Society at the Walk for Animals on May 7 at Liberty Station’s NTC Park.
The festivities included a pancake breakfast, 2-mile and half-mile walks, dog activities, live music and vendor booths.
The event returned in person after cancellations the past two years amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Nina Thompson of the Humane Society said 5,000 walkers and nearly 1,000 dogs participated.
The money raised will help SDHS shelter homeless pets, rescue animals from cruelty and neglect, care for orphaned kittens, provide critical veterinary care, rehabilitate native wildlife, keep pets in their homes and out of shelters and respond to natural disasters.
“In the coming year, we will care for more than 40,000 animals in need,’’ said Dr. Gary Weitzman, president and chief executive of SDHS. — City News Service
Richard Lareau, ‘Mr. Point Loma,’ dies at 94
Architect Richard Lareau, whose decades-long service on the Point Loma Association and Peninsula Bank boards and in various neighborhood causes earned him the unofficial title “Mr. Point Loma,” died April 10 from complications of a stroke. He was 94.
Lareau also was a prodigious fundraiser for institutions at San Diego’s Balboa Park. But his midcentury modern architectural work — wood-and-glass custom homes, circular public buildings including churches and the Mission Bay Visitors Center, and an assortment of public libraries, school buildings and Navy facilities — serves as a permanent legacy.
Just out of architecture school, he worked on the design of the El Cortez Hotel’s glass elevator in the mid-1950s. A decade later he was designing the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house at San Diego State University, where its two lion statues still guard the entrance. He also was campus architect for California Western University, now Point Loma Nazarene University, and designed the Barnes Tennis Center in Point Loma.
Lareau is survived by his second wife, Victory, and their children, Lisa Traylor and Mark Lareau; two children, Vikki Lane and Lance Lareau, by his first wife, Jeanne Doyle; and nine grandchildren.
A celebration of life is scheduled from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 17, at the Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park. The family suggests that donations in his memory go to the Barnes Tennis Center or the museum. — Roger Showley
Silver Gate Yacht Club’s Wheelchair Regatta returns June 5
Silver Gate Yacht Club will host its 60th Wheelchair Regatta on Sunday, June 5, giving members and volunteers a chance to share the club with hundreds of people with disabilities for a “Day on the Bay” with lunch and music.
About 200 Marines typically come to help the participants onto boats, according to club member Dorrie Stutz.
The event was canceled the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Silver Gate Yacht Club is at 2091 Shelter Island Drive. For more information or to volunteer, call (619) 222-1214, email manager@sgyc.org or visit bit.ly/38nhnba.
Walk raises $43,000 to help people with developmental disabilities
The Best Buddies Friendship Walk raised more than $43,000 on May 1 to help the nonprofit Best Buddies International create opportunities for friendships, integrated employment, leadership development and living arrangements for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
More than 350 people attended the walk at NTC Park at Liberty Station.
Since 2009, more than 250,000 Friendship Walk participants have walked in more than 60 cities and raised more than $24 million for Best Buddies, according to the organization.
— Compiled by Point Loma-OB Monthly staff