Garden Grove Strawberry Festival

Started in 1958, The Garden Grove Chamber of Commerce put on the first Garden Grove Strawberry Festival as a way to bring together the east and west sides of Garden Grove. Resident Tom Hoxie, a public relations professional, suggested a festival to celebrate the area’s then prolific strawberry fields. That first festival was held on a vacant lot in the Brookhurst Triangle, an area bordered by Garden Grove Blvd., Brookhurst St., and Brookhurst Way. And Hoxie, true to his profession, sent locally grown strawberries to a monastery in Europe — the festival’s first PR ploy. When the Chamber decided not to hold a strawberry festival the following year, a group of citizens formed a non-profit organization, the Garden Grove Strawberry Festival Association, and moved the festival to Garden Grove Park where there was more parking.