Primary School
The La Cruz Chrsitmas Party for the Escuela Primaria takes place on Wednesday December 19, 6 p.m. at Sandzibar Restaurant at the Alamar Beach Club, Playa Manzanilla in La Cruz.
The evening features hors d’oeuvres created by Sandzibar, live music and entertainment and a cash bar, all in the incredibly lush, tropical landscape of the exclusive Alamar Beach Club. It’s a unique opportunity to visit this distinctive locale and to make a huge contribution to the kids of La Cruz.
Tickets for this special event cost 300 pesos per person and can be purchased online at the Amigos de la Cruz website or from the following locations/individuals: Alamar (Discovery Sales Center, Luis Gonzalez), Amigos de la Cruz- Duncan Randall 322-116-5274, Beta Sigma Phi- Connie Hollander 322-117-4434, Cooperativa Huanacaxtle- Main Palapa at the Sunday Market, Inside La Cruz- Landon Hollander 322-116-4731 and Philo’s Studio & Bar.
Street scene
The 4th Annual Bucerias Street Festival is set for January 23, 24 and 25, featuring The Bucerias Chalk Art Walk, the Taste of Riviera Nayarit and a Children’s Chalk Workshop.
The festival offers a variety of opportunities for visitors. The entire block of Lazaro Cardenas in Bucerias will be closed to traffic between Juarez and Galeana for the event.
Once again, the festival is raising funds for the non-profit organization PEACE, with all net proceeds going to support their many programs. And, as in prior years, a raffle will be held benefitting Manos de Amor children’s shelter.
The Bucerias Chalk Art Walk showcases beautiful scenes drawn directly on the street, so bring your camera. A dozen artists are expected to participate in the competition starting Wednesday, January 23. Judging is late afternoon on the 24th.
With the theme for this event “Sol de Mexico,” cash prizes are supplied by solar energy company eSun Energy and will be awarded to the three top entries.
On Friday morning, area children will gather on Lazaro Cardenas to learn techniques from the artists and will have a chance to create their own street chalk art.
The Taste of Riviera Nayarit takes place at the same time. Local restaurants, street vendors and home cooks will be offering “taste” size portions of their specialties. With nothing costing more than 30 pesos, there’s plenty of opportunity to try different types of food.
Beer, soft drinks, water and this year wine, will be sold.
Each afternoon features different live music. There will be dancing in the street, just like last year.
Festival organizers say there is room for more chalk artists and food vendors to sign up. There is no cost for chalk artists to compete and they will receive a small stipend to participate. Fees for food vendors are very reasonable, organizers say.
Volunteers are needed to help make this fundraising festival a success.
Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call Christy at the Broken Art Gallery, 298-2506 for information.
Wrapping things up
The Bucerias Children’s Christmas Program is gearing up for its 19th toy and candy distribution day on December 24.
Ron and Arlene Tackett (aka Mr. and Mrs. Santa) established this annual charitable program 19 years ago.
They have their to-do list down to a science.
About 240 pounds of candy for the bags that are handed out to the roughly 1,300 kids has already been purchased. The candy joins the toys filing up their bodega, waiting for “wrapping day,” which will be December 10, starting at 11 a.m.
That day a group of volunteers join the Tacketts, filling bags with candy and sorting all of the purchased and donated toys, accumulated through the year, into gender and age-appropriate stacks and wrapping them up in Christmas paper in the Tackett’s back yard.
If you’d like to join this merry band of “Santa’s helpers” on wrapping day, telephone Ron or Arlene Tackett at (329) 298-1729 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Mrs. Santa reminds everyone that tickets for their December 13 fundraiser for next year’s Bucerias Children’s Christmas are on sale now. The Tacketts’ goal is to raise 50,000 pesos to be able to purchase toys for distribution day next year. She says there will be lots of food, fun and great prizes in the raffle.
Sweep and patch
The Las Palmas-Dorada association is an image-conscious citizens group composed of permanent residents, part-time residents and business owners in the two Bucerias colonias which cover the area from the arroyo to the Decameron Resort Complex and from Highway 200 to the beach – a 37-square-block area.
The group’s main project since September has been cleaning the neighborhood’s streets and sidewalks.
There have been four cleanups to-date, numbering as many as 50 to 70 volunteers cleaning streets alongside employees from the municipal public works department who brought a dump truck and a Bobcat scoop.
A second priority now is repairing the cobblestone streets of the two colonias, again in cooperation with the municipality, which supplies labor, cement mixer, sand and cobblestones.
The association supplies bags of cement through donations from citizens interested in improving not only the looks, but also the ride, of the area’s rustic cobblestone streets.
Association representative Mario Topete points out that it is necessary to keep the “flow” of cement coming, so the public works crew continues its repairs in Bucerias.
“If the repair crew runs out of cement they will likely be assigned to work in another town and it may be a while before they return to Bucerias.”
In addition, Topete says the cement donations can be “leverage” to encourage the municipality to pave the parts of Avenida Fibba and Carmen Serdan, which are still only dirt roads and to keep the streets in good condition in the future.
The bags of cement are purchased locally, at a discount, from Acero Monterrey building supplies on Highway 200 across from the Pemex station.
The Decameron Resort donated 276 bags to repair Av. Las Palmas, which leads to their complex and takes a beating from tour buses.
A record is kept of donors’ names, address and amount of cash or cement donation. Contact Harold Sokolove at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for information.
Any donor can arrange to purchase/reserve cement for the streets project at Acero Monterrey, as long as they follow certain guidelines: request a receipt, give their name and address, then send an email advising of the purchase, with name, address and amount ordered to Sokolove, association member, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
A holiday posada, to raise money to buy cement, is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, December 16, from 6-10 p.m., on Av. Lazaro Cardenas, between Fibba and Av. Melgar, featuring traditional Mexican food and entertainment.
The final street cleanup of the year is scheduled for Thursday, December 13. Persons are asked to clean their street frontage beginning at 8 a.m. Several volunteer cleanup crews will then move through the area, from north-to-south starting at 10 a.m.