Eastside festival sends hundreds home with basic necessities, hope

Eastside residents in need had the opportunity to take their pick of thousands of donated essentials during the 2016 Hope Festival on Saturday.

The festival, organized by Eastlake High School students in Sammamish, served about 1,500 low-income individuals and families at the invitation-only event hosted at the Bellevue Highlands Community Center.

Made possible by a collaboration of youth, adults, nonprofits and volunteers, the event aims to show guests “they are cared for and that there are people to support them in their community,” according to one of the festival flyers.

In all, there were more than 300 volunteers, almost double from the prior year, who organized and ran the event, the bulk of which were students.

“It made me feel comfortable and at ease,” Bellevue resident Lisa Mojin said Saturday. “I loved how the students were so nice.”

Mojin, who got a haircut Saturday, said it was also good to see others in the area who are struggling in similar ways.

“It’s good to relate to someone who’s in the same predicament,” she said. “It was a great overall vibe. It was very pleasant.”

She was just one of many who described the event as such.

Linda Sanchez-Suvaneh, of Redmond, personally thanked Tyler Zangaglia, the lead organizer and a sophomore at Eastlake High.

“I am so thankful for things like this,” she said.

Sanchez-Suvaneh shared her story, confiding that she was homeless before. As a single mom with a 10th-grade education, she said she persevered and taught her daughter, now a student at University of Washington, to be a fighter.

“I’ve come a long way from being homeless,” she said. “Hopefully, [the Hope Festival] will help other people, and they will persevere.”

Zangaglia and the two Hope Festival co-directors, Eastlake seniors Torrey Nielsen and Amy Stewart, have been gearing up for the February event since August 2015.

This is the second year students have run the event, previously called the Harvest Festival.

“It’s been wonderful to see a high school student take it over,” said Son Michael Pham, founder of Kids Without Borders. “People are so thankful when they come out the door.”

Mary Trask, of the ARAS Foundation, started the Harvest Festival more than 10 years ago. When she announced she would no longer run the event, she said Zangaglia was “shell-shocked” and determined not to give up on it.

Zangaglia and other volunteers worked with organizations such as the Sammamish Rotary, Value Village and the Issaquah Food Bank, just to name a few, as well as hosted food and clothing drives in Eastside communities leading up to the event.

They reached out to district councils, food banks and various other agencies, shelters and schools, which passed along the invitations to low-income families and individuals.

“A lot of these families have been here before, and they look forward to it,” Stewart said.

Improving upon last year’s event, students rented the entire community center, filling every room. In addition to the donated items, Sammamish Kiwanis hosted a putt-putt mini golf course, nonprofit clowns folded balloons for children and the Eastlake drama club, dressed as princesses, fairies and other magical beings, posed for photos with young ones and helped them play mini golf.

There were signs, in English and Spanish, guiding people throughout the festival.

Other organizations, such as LifeWire and Hopelink, manned booths offering resources and information on various amenities available through various programs.