Fairgrounds Expo Hall Needs Hands on 9/11, Not Speeches

September 11, 2026, lands on a Friday and marks 25 years since the attacks. 9/11 Day, the nonprofit started by family members after that morning, is treating the date as a national workday. Fifty-plus cities will pack shelf-stable meals in one coordinated push, aiming for more than 17 million servings and tens of thousands of volunteers. San Jose’s piece happens inside Expo Hall at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, 344 Tully Road. The boxes leave for Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, which already feeds people through hundreds of partner sites in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Last year’s hall packed on the order of 200,000 meals with several hundred volunteers. Corporate teams often fill the assembly lines; many of those seats are reserved and sponsored at $250 a person to cover food costs. What the organizers say they still need, urgently, is the Event Support Team: people who do not stand at a packing table the whole shift but keep the machine from stalling. Table captains teach and pace each line. Heavy lifters and runners restock ingredients and haul finished cases, work that can mean 50-pound boxes. Guest services check people in. Set-up and break-down crews open and close the room.

Those support roles require volunteers 18 and older, a one-hour Zoom training about a week beforehand, and roughly four hours on site. Prior years ran a morning block around 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., with a shorter cleanup window after noon. Confirm the 2026 shift on the signup form before blocking the calendar. Parking sits behind Expo Hall.

Second Harvest’s latest client survey found nearly everyone it serves cutting grocery spending to cover rent and medical bills. A Friday morning in a fairgrounds hall will not fix that math but it will put sealed meals onto local trucks instead of leaving the anniversary of 9/11 as a minute of silence and a flag at half staff.

Sign up for Event Support in San Jose (18+): https://volunteer.911day.org/projects/62266f60-e37b-4c5a-a1cf-74b90128cb96

Second Harvest food locator and hotline: https://www.shfb.org/get-food/

New Museum proposed for the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds

San Jose residents Marcella and Gary Gulmon are leading an effort to develop a permanent fairgrounds history museum to celebrate the 80-year history of the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. The museum would be placed inside the 1949 State House Replica which is located within the fairgrounds. San Jose was the capitol of California between 1849 and 1851. The California State House replica was built to honor that.

The museum would display fairgrounds historical collections year-round. The Gulmon family is passionate about collecting, preserving, and documenting fairgrounds history.

It certainly is important to understand our roots and farming heritage. Long before we were Silicon Valley, we were the Valley of Heart's Delight. Some of the best farmland in the country, is actually here. Hopefully they will be able to open the museum soon.

Source: The Mercury News

Viva CalleSJ: SoFA to the Streets (San Jose's SoFA, SCC Fairgrounds, and Martial Cottle Park)

Viva CalleSJ is back for it's 1st event of the 2024! Miles of city streets will be completely shut down to let people walk, run, dance, bike, unicycle, skateboard, or hoverboard down the streets of San Jose. 

SoFA to the Streets features three activity hubs which are festivals-within-a-festival that highlight the local area. This time the activity hubs will be SoFA, the SCC Fairgrounds, and Martial Cottle Park. You can expect live music, vendors, food, activities, bike parking, and good times at all of the hubs. In between the activity hubs you will still find all sorts of interesting stops, hydration stations, and stores.

A unique feature this time around is the route is a single line with no branches. It's crazy to think you can walk all the way from Martial Cottle Park on Branham Lane all the way to Downtown San Jose on city streets.

The event takes place on Sunday, April 21st from 10am to 3pm (streets are closed until 4pm). There is no beginning or end and the traffic flows in both directions. It's completely free and you can use the handy map below to locate the routes and festivities. For more info, head over here.