Cabarete Summer Fest – a Success!

A four day long lifestyle celebration and charity effort finished Sunday in Kite Beach Cabarete with a great success. Cabarete Summer Fest 2009 brought art and music to accompany some of the finest kiteboarding and skateboarding athletes of the Dominican Republic, who all supported this event in the name of the school children of Cabarete. Luciano Gonzalez’ fund raising program Develop a Kid is officially launched in collaboration with the Wishspring Foundation. All money raised will go to the local school Centro de Enzeñanza Coral in Callejon de la Loma.

The Cabarete Summer Fest kicked off Thursday with a beach full of children, artists, musicians and athletes, to raise awareness for the slowly growing, but still poor educational situation on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. Thanks to a life long effort from school president Muguelina Zayaz, the Centro de Enzeñanza Coral is a perfect example of how dedication and passion paves the way to a better every day life. Starting with a small classroom years ago, the results today speak for themselves at the Coral school. Computer labs, classrooms, playground and library are all in place to push the education to a new level for the Cabarete children. The Cabarete Summer Fest is proud to have had the opportunity to get involved and bring together great representatives of the DR to support the cause. A big thank you is in order to all the great people and sponsors involved in launching this first step on a road which will hopefully keep going in to the future.

DJ’s and artists for charity
The Cabarete Summer Fest had the pleasure of presenting a number of fine Dominican DJ’s during this festival, coming from Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, Santiago and Cabarete to share their artistic musical skills and adding a perfect atmosphere to an all day lasting beach party on Kite Beach Cabarete. Names like DJ Mahogani, DJ Jeff, DJ Umbert Hart, DJ Pasta, DJ Pablo and DJ Ariel all threw down some awesome tunes and vibes to pick up the party spirit this weekend. During the night time parties, the Cabarete Summer Fest also had the pleasure of presenting live band To Save Our World and acoustic music from Ben Meyer at the local chill out bar Lax. 13 years old Canadian Samantha Ciotti presented her fresh self composed song “Hate Loving You” with huge success. Not only does Samantha master her musical skills to perfection, she was also to find on the podium for the Luciano Gonzalez Cabarete Kitesurf Open in this event. Samantha made it to 3rd place competing against Aline Vetterli and professional kiteboarder Audrey Meyer. Samantha plays in the band To Save Our World with her father Joe, her mom Karen and friend Eva, who performed their music for the first time during the evening party at Lax Bar in Cabarete town.

Luciano Gonzalez Cabarete Kitesurf Open
Cabarete Summer Fest co-founder and long time professional kiteboarder Luciano Gonzalez has for years dedicated his time to kiteboarding and the community. Being one of the very first professional kiteboarders from the Dominican Republic, his experience and
expertise is irreproachable and highly valuable in the making of the Summer Fest. Launching this new kiteboarding championship for charity is an important step on the road towards better days for both athletes and children and finished with success after two days of freestyle and race down the coastline of Cabarete. Seeing more than 30 kites in the air competing for fund raising purposes brought a big crowd to Kite Beach to support the athletes and the cause. Although Cabarete Summer Fest struggled a bit with the wind conditions, the outcome could hardly have been more successful. As Cabarete is known for world known kiteboarding names from the world tours, the riders list was impressive and exactly in the spirit of what this event was all about. Side by side with the DR riders we saw international riders taking the challenge against names like Ariel Corniel, Alex Soto, Luis Alberto and Emmanuel Rondon, who can all refer to long lists of excellent world tour results throughout the past few years.
This event presented only local competitors on the winners podiums and reflects a kiteboarding standard of the DR that deserves more attention and help to grow towards a solid kiteboarding institution.
The winners are;
Race
1. Bobo Corniel (EH Kiteboarding, Maraja Beach Club, Tremendo, Panaderia La Campagna)
2. Ariel Corniel (Panaderia La Campagna, Lifestyle Holidays, Plinsi Cabarete Kiteboards, CM, Grupo Consolidado)
3. Luis Alberto Cruz (EH Kiteboarding, Grupo Consolidado, muradas)

Freestyle
1. Ariel Corniel (Panaderia La Campagna, Lifestyle Holidays, Plinsi Cabarete Kiteboards, CM, Grupo Consolidado)
2. Alex Soto (Starkites, DonkeyDick Kiteboarding)
3. Luis Alberto Cruz (EH Kiteboarding, Grupo Consolidado, muradas)

Womens Freestyle
1. Audrey Meyer (Naish, Dare2Fly, Maui Jim)
2. Aline Vetterli
3. Samantha Ciotti

The Luciano Gonzalez Cabarete Kitesurf Open is the first step towards a full summer tour to keep raising money and awareness around the educational situation in the DR.

Tropical Skate Company - a show for the masses
Coming all the way from Santo Domingo to take part in the Summer Fest, Tropical Skate Company rocked in the mobile half pipe, freshly built by the same team and the dedicated people behind this positive project. Rigging up a huge ramp in the Method Kite garden was anything but easy, but with another community effort from the local construction workers and skate manager Giuseppe Polanco and his team, the ramp got in to place and drew an awesome crowd to watch these amazing riders pulling some unbelievable stunts in the half pipe. This crew of skateboarders, in-line skaters and BMX riders only few days before the Summer Fest completed in victory the Snickers Urbania event in Santo Domingo and keep chasing their dream of becoming full time professional skateboarders, riding for passion and good vibes. The Summer Fest skateboarding championship was supported by skateboarding, in-line skate and flat land BMX exhibitions from these guys who for sure are the future of Dominican Skateboarding.
The Cabarete Summer Fest is proud to be working with this passionate skateboarding company and welcomes all of them for the next round of the Summer Fest!
The winners are;

BMX
1. Rafael Mendez
2. Allan Valdez
3. Carlos Lopez

In-Line Skates
1. Christophe Cid
2. Manuel Colon
3. Joseph Ortiz

Skateboarding
1. Daniel Cuervo
2. Leonardo Capellan
3. Miguel Cuevas

International images
To top off the success of this amazing start of the Summer Fest, painters and photographers from the international scene donated their time and effort with photos and art for the cause of the Develop a Kid with Wishspring fund raising program. These images will follow the Summer Fest on the next trip and reflect the message of this project.
La Farina Restaurant at Kite Beach opened their doors for both the Summer Fest and the exhibitions throughout the event and made it possible to present the art in a great and warm atmosphere.

The photo exhibition contained photo art from Norwegian Karina Jensen, Argentinean Adela Kein and Norwegian Haakon Stillingen. From Mexico we had the pleasure of showing off some beautiful paintings from Samuel Uribe, who currently resides in Cabarete and will keep materializing his images in this little surf town.

The Summer Fest organizers are very impressed by the support and the attention this festival has received. Hundreds of people passed through the festival during the weekend and put a great vibe to the Kite Beach community.
The Develop a Kid with Wishspring project and the Centro de Enzeñanza Coral will keep working for more awareness and money to help raise the level of education in Cabarete and the surrounding areas. Step by step small victories are achieved; step by step more children will have a better future, thanks to good people and community effort.

Related websites;
www.dreambuz.com
www.lgcabarete.com
www.tropicalsk8co.com