Santa Monica will look more like Santa’s Workshop on Saturday, with thousands of Santa’s helpers expected to roam the streets for a worthy cause.
The 16th annual SANTA Monica Pub Crawl returns, with more than 20 of the city’s best bars and restaurants expecting one of the busiest traffic nights of the year. The hefty attendee list will not only support the local businesses, but will go towards fundraising for the Westside Food Bank.
Since 2008, the crawl has raised over half a million meals for the food bank, which distributes nearly four million pounds of food annually to the food assistance programs of 65 Westside social service agencies. The crawl comes a month after the bank’s annual Hunger Walk, which President and CEO Genevieve Riutort said raised over $100,000 for the organization.
Spin PR President Kim Koury, who created the crawl, picked the food bank as a partner from the event’s origin.
“[We were] looking into the organization that was near in our backyard,” Koury said. “I live a couple blocks from the actual food bank itself, and knowing that they distribute food to the entire Westside and a lot of women and children during the holiday season, [it] felt near and dear to our hearts and [we wanted] to help support them.”
Starting by actually collecting food in cans and boxes, the endeavor became too difficult for volunteers to carry the offerings back to the Westside warehouse. Moving to a percentage of sales helping the food bank has provided even more food due to the nonprofit buying in bulk.
Now over a decade and a half into the fun, the 2024 edition will be packed on both Main Street and Promenade routes. A ticket to the crawl unlocks exclusive drink deals and discounted food items throughout the night, as well as a free drink for the first 500 participants on each route, beginning at 4pm.
Participating bars and restaurants include Jameson’s, Barney’s Beanery, Santa Monica Whaler, Tavern on Main, and Harvelle’s which will be having live music throughout the event. A new addition is The Bungalow, which will act as the beginning of the Promenade route with activation in the parking lot such as photo booths and tastings.
A Main Street favorite, The Victorian, will be bringing the holiday spirit with live “snow” as well as photo opportunities with Santa Claus himself. There will also be Santa’s Scavenger Hunt as well as prizes for the best holiday costume, opportunities Koury said will make the event “interactive and something fun that people of all ages can participate in.”
“We want families and co-workers to come out and dress up and support their businesses and just spread merry good cheer and help crawl for a cause,” Koury added.
Westside Food Bank will also be represented the following day at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows for the annual Meet Me Under the Fig Tree event. The Fairmont is partnering with the food bank, as well as Santa MoniCARES and Chrysalis to accept donations of canned food, gently worn clothing and monetary gifts.
The spirit of the season is a needed one for the food bank, which has faced cuts in its food purchasing budget this year due to donations being down. Through December 31, The Johnny Carson Foundation and a pool of anonymous donors are matching gifts to the food bank dollar-for-dollar, making donations go twice as far.
“We’re really asking the community to be as generous as they can … because we’ve never needed help quite as much as we do this year,” Riutort said.
For more information on the Pub Crawl and to purchase tickets, visit santamonicapubcrawl.com. For more information on the Westside Food Bank, visit wsfb.org.
thomas@smdp.com
