North Modesto Kiwanis brings Graffiti Festival to life

BY KRISTINA HACKER

There would be no annual American Graffiti Car Show and Festival without the vision and dedication of the North Modesto Kiwanis Club.

The Modesto service club has a long history of giving back to the community by raising money for local nonprofit organizations. The club’s first fundraiser was Chicken a Go Go, which ran for 50 years before the club then started hosting the Concours d’Elegance Car Show. That annual car show was the spark that led to the founding of the American Graffiti Car Show and Festival 24 years ago. John Sanders led the show for almost two decades, before handing it off to fellow Kiwanian Brent Burnside.

Burnside, owner of Burnside Body Shop, was a natural choice to take up the Graffiti Festival mantel as he has a longtime love of cars and cruising. Burnside said he has fond memories of watching cars cruise downtown Modesto with this dad when he was a kid in the late 1970s.

“There was not much to do Modesto back in the day. But we have plenty of flat streets and long streets to do a drag race. So, the kids would hang out at the Burgess diner just like the movie (American Graffiti). You know it was for three or four months during summer and it was a weekly event, cruising,” he said.

The festival is now the biggest event for the club, with planning happening year-round and involving 150 to 200 volunteers. Over 90% of the club’s overall funds comes from the festival, with all of it going to children’s programs, scholarships and Christmas baskets for families in need throughout Stanislaus County.

The festival has grown so much, it’s become legendary for a Central Valley car show event.

“A car show that gets over 1,000 cars is pretty unique, especially here in the Valley…It’s just steadily grown since I've been in it. I remember my first year we reached 600 (cars) in the parade, and now to be over 1,000 before COVID. Now we've agreed, just for safety reasons number one, and so the cruisers get a chance to go around a couple times instead of sitting so much because we had so many cars, we cap it at 1,000,” said Burnside.

Burnside said the club is hoping to continue the festival for years to come by drawing in more of the younger crowd. While the Graffiti Festival is based on the 1973 movie “American Graffiti” starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams and Candy Clark, among others, younger car enthusiasts are more likely to connect with the car culture in the “Fast & Furious” films that span from 2001 through 2023, said Burnside.

To encompass a broader range of car enthusiasts, the club started getting involved in the Cars and Coffee group, a movement that can be seen in cities across the country.

“So, it's for any type of car, motorcycle, any year, make or model, and it's really to celebrate cars. For a lot of folks their car is their pride and joy. I'm a hot rod guy myself and I like having a couple of classic cars, but they take a lot of work. The nice thing about Cars and Coffee is everybody you can do their own style,” he said.

The next Cars and Coffee event will be held at 7 a.m. June 11 at the Modesto Junior College West Campus.

While widely recognized for their Graffiti Festival & Car Show, the North Modesto Kiwanis Club is also known as being pancake specialists. They have hosted over 800 pancake breakfasts at the Modesto Senior Center over the past several years and have prepared a pancake breakfast for the hundreds of volunteers during Love Modesto for the past two years.

The club also hosts the annual Breakfast with Santa event in downtown Modesto every holiday season.

The North Modesto Kiwanis Club holds in-person meetings at 7 a.m. Thursdays at the ‘Graffiti USA Classic Car Museum’ on 9th and Woodland in Modesto. Breakfast is $15 per person. For more information about the club, visit https://k06186.site.kiwanis.org/