By DREW WINCHESTER, dwinchester@breezenewspapers.com
The wildly popular Cinco de Mayo festival returns to downtown Cape Coral this weekend.
Co-sponsored by the city of Cape Coral Special events Division and the Southwest Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the celebration will feature all the hallmarks of past Cinco de Mayor events downtown, along with some new surprises.
Hispanic Chamber Board President Veronica Culbertson was busy on Friday putting the finishing touches on the event. She said everything was moving along nicely.
“We’re going crazy, but we almost have everything wrapped up,” she said. “We have a great group of volunteers working hard, getting everything ready, making it happen.”
Though a single case of swine flu has been confirmed in Lee County, Culbertson said she wasn’t worried about the illness having a major impact on attendance numbers.
“To be honest, no, it really doesn’t worry me,” she said. “Unless we have a major outbreak between today and tomorrow, I’m not too worried.”
New this year will be a “Chips and Salsa Contest,” featuring 10 local restaurants competing to determine who has the most tasty and delicious salsa.
For live entertainment, Wildfire will be playing rock n’ roll to get the people dancing, Universal Music Latino Recording Artist Valerie Morales will bring the Latin flavor.
Then, of course, don’t forget the enormous amounts of food, including traditional fare like pizza and burgers, plus all the the Latin food you desire. Then there are the adult beverages, with both beer and margaritas available for purchase.
For Culbertson and all the sponsors and organizers of the event, they just hope people of all backgrounds come out to enjoy themselves on a Saturday night in downtown Cape Coral.
“We really want the whole community to be there. It’s going to be a whole lot of fun,” she said. “We really hope everyone will come down.”
The celebration will take place on Southeast 47th Terrace, downtown, from 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday.
The free South Cape trolley will be providing rides throughout the evening.
The trolley route will be modified slightly to take the road closure along Southeast 47th Terrace into account.