Tag: kids

Kids fighting cancer: a Celebration of Champions!

The 29th Celebration of Champions was held today in San Diego at Embarcadero Marina Park North!

Families from around the region gathered for relay races, a circle of life, and happy activities celebrating kids who fight childhood cancer. The event benefits Rady Children’s Peckham Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, which offers one of the nation’s top pediatric cancer programs.

Young kids played and romped during the festival, and families remembered loving children who had tragically passed away.

Generous sponsors ran relays with individual families and children, everyone cheering encouragement. The San Diego Padres and Gulls were present, as were SDSU cheerleaders and Star Wars cosplayers and Batman with his cool Batmobile! I almost forgot the pony rides and carnival!

What an inspirational event. An immense crowd had gathered in the San Diego sunshine. Faith in humanity restored. You had to be there.

If you’d like to help out Rady Children’s Hospital, click here!

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Santa Claus, CHiPs and toys for kids!

What was Santa Claus doing in San Diego this morning? Good question!

As I waited at the Fashion Valley Transit Center for a bus, I spied Santa on the side of a box truck in the mall parking lot. So of course I had to walk over and investigate!

Turns out I had discovered a wonderful charity.

CHiPs for Kids sponsors an annual holiday season toy drive by the California Highway Patrol. The toy drive typically begins in mid-November and runs through mid-December, just in time for Christmas.

CHP area offices around California are where the unwrapped and unused toys are collected. The donated toys are distributed to families who are in need.

Santa on the side of a truck and the promised delivery of holiday cheer!

In late April!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Murals outside Second Chance Youth Garden.

Four beautiful murals are part of a fence at the Second Chance Youth Garden in San Diego’s Encanto neighborhood. I spotted the artwork about a week ago during my walk down Imperial Avenue.

Second Chance Youth Garden describes itself as an 8-week program combining hands-on urban farming & classroom learning for low-income youth in San Diego.

These colorful murals are amazing! If you have more information concerning them, please leave a comment.

Enjoy a few photographs…

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Brave people confront danger in La Jolla!

Yesterday a group of unsuspecting people confronted imminent danger at UC San Diego in La Jolla!

The large group could not know the sort of peril they’d be facing. We had gathered in Revelle Plaza to witness a performance by Cirque Inextremiste, but many didn’t realize that WE would be the performers!

Yann Ecauvre appeared and proceeded to drag long, very heavy wooden beams out to the surrounding audience. He stood the beams on end and then had ordinary hands (some of which were rather small) hold them upright. When unsteady beams began to precariously tip, the danger was safely overcome. Whew!

Then audience members began to build a wooden structure made of more beams. Higher and increasingly impressive the construct grew . . . those vertically held beams were added . . . then a chain of courageous humans holding hands mounted the crazy, tipsy structure!

The performance was called Damoclès. It was part of this weekend’s free La Jolla Playhouse 2024 WOW event!

Would you like to bring out your own courage? Damoclès will be repeated this afternoon. See the 2024 Without Walls Festival schedule by clicking here!

(By the way–were you there? That was me, surprised, given a yellow danger tape necktie, and helping to hold up the second beam. Taking photos during the ordeal was a challenge!)

These kids were fearless!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Baseball bat playground coming to Petco Park!

A gigantic baseball bat tower has been installed inside Gallagher Square at Petco Park!

Check it out! That huge bat is actually part of a new, super cool playground, which, as I understand it, will feature a slide and bridge that connect to those other elevated structures!

Whoaa! To be a kid again! Families living in downtown San Diego and those attending Padres games are in for a treat!

While walking through East Village around Petco Park late this afternoon, I also noticed some Padres players street lamp banners are up for the new 2024 season!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Art at the Festival of Science & Engineering!

Could kids find and create art at the San Diego Festival of Science & Engineering? Yes!

Today was Expo Day, a free event held at Snapdragon Stadium. Thousands of young people wandered through the stadium’s concourses, viewing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) displays, and partaking in experiments and activities provided by about a hundred exhibitors!

The annual event is absolutely gargantuan and impossible to cover in one blog post. I’ve blogged about Expo Day several times in past years, when this educational extravaganza was held at Petco Park.

Winding through the crowd, I discovered the Art Pavilion and, with permission from various exhibitors, my camera got busy.

Enjoy a few photos of artwork created by students, teachers and artists attending the San Diego Festival of Science & Engineering. Read the captions!

Families explore the Art Pavilion during Expo Day 2024, a San Diego Festival of Science & Engineering event at Snapdragon Stadium.

Are those molecules or cool sculptures? Kids get creative with the help of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Two hands, liquid and bending light by artist and educator Sheena Rae Dowling.

This cool STEAM artwork, full of creative ideas, won a blue ribbon!

Demand evidence. Think critically. Erica, a biology student at National University, created this scientific artwork!

The Art Club of Patrick Henry High School created these colorful Science Pyramids: Temples of Truth. If you point your phone at the artwork, you can experience augmented reality bursting from each pyramid!

Beautiful art depicting native flora and fauna presented by the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Space exploration art from a C.A.R.T. student.

Lunna, founder of VAINANA, creates art with bananas to fight hunger and promote food sustainability.

The colorful work of EcoArts Kids. Students create environmental art in afterschool programs at several San Diego elementary schools.

Part of the SoRoART group exhibition of soft robotics by SDSU students. Air periodically inflates these lungs, as if they’re breathing!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Dragons and lions invade San Diego’s Gaslamp!

Dragons and lions have invaded San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter this weekend!

The colorful “Chinese New Year Faire San Diego” is being held downtown, on 3rd Avenue and J Street near the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum. The annual festival is hosted by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. The event seems to grow larger every year!

It’s the Year of the Dragon, and there’s one enormous dragon moving sinuously through the crowd. And lucky, happy lion dancers parading down the street, too!

Up on the stage there are school kids in costume dancing and ladies smiling during a Chinese fashion show. Thao French, whose amazing Year of the Dragon art you’ve seen in Little Saigon recently, is spray painting another dragon mural. There are vendors everywhere, activities for young people, and no shortage of yummy food. Kung Fu Panda is greeting one and all, too!

(I won a beach ball spinning a prize wheel! Can you beat that?)

You can view the program schedule for this weekend by clicking here. The Chinese New Year Faire San Diego continues tomorrow–Sunday, February 25, 2024.

Enjoy these photographs from Saturday morning!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

ArtReach community murals in City Heights!

These very beautiful murals were painted a month ago in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood. I saw the murals last weekend as I walked down Fairmount Avenue, just north of University Avenue. They decorate the Plaza del Sol affordable housing building.

I’ve learned the colorful artwork was created by ArtReach during a Community Paint Day!

ArtReach is a program in San Diego that inspires and educates youth with art. You can see their website’s Mural Programs page here. ArtReach’s mission is: Igniting youth creativity through visual arts expression and community connection.

Check out these fantastic murals! The images reflect cultural diversity in the community and regional flora and fauna.

Many hands held paintbrushes. The lead artist was @thisisntjosue.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Black History Month at San Diego History Center.

Black History Month is being celebrated at the San Diego History Center throughout the month of February. Special displays honor African American artists, families, trailblazers and champions in San Diego. And there are fun educational activities for young people, too!

Did you know that Audrey “Mickey” Patterson-Tyler was the first Black woman to win an Olympic medal? And that she in her later years lived in National City? I didn’t know.

Did you know that quilts played an unexpected role in Black History? Harriet Tubman used quilts to display secret codes along the Underground Railroad, guiding slaves to freedom. Kids exploring the exhibit can color or add stickers to their own special paper Story Quilt.

As I read various signs, I was reminded how the San Diego History Center partnered with the San Diego African American Museum of Fine Arts six years ago, to feature the work of local Black artists. I blogged about that event here.

There’s so much in the exhibition to absorb: historical photographs, biographies, a display about local struggles for civil rights, and a display concerning Martin Luther King Jr. and his visit to San Diego.

Want to check it out? The San Diego History Center is located in the heart of Balboa Park, Admission is free!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!

More positive murals by students in Escondido!

When I returned to Washington Park in Escondido yesterday, I noticed that four more positive murals have been painted by local students on two of the community center buildings. Click here to see the murals I found during my walk through Washington Park last spring.

Here’s a great article that concerns these four new murals. They were painted later in 2023 by Del Lago Academy students in teacher Sudi Memarzadeh’s class.

I like how, in the first two photos, young human figures are together covering over hurtful words. Goodbye loner, poor, hate and ugly. Hello bright, positive colors!

The next mural honors Mahsa Amini and the women’s freedom movement in Iran…

Women, Life, Freedom.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!