It might have been Goleta’s best dam dinner yet.
The afternoon sun was shining on Lake Los Carneros, the Salt Martians were playing live bluegrass music, and the long table set up on the dam was full of hundreds of residents enjoying homemade picnic dinners, food from AR Catering, and Mayor Paula Perotte’s peanut butter cookies.
Hundreds of attendees celebrated the 11th annual Goleta Dam Dinner Saturday evening.
“This is breaking bread with your neighbors,” Perotte said. “This is free. We have food trucks and things for the kids to do, music, and no agenda.”
While many people sat and chatted while eating, others strolled along the length of the table, looking for familiar faces and discussing the succulent plant arrangements grown by Devereux California residents—those with a dot under their seat actually got to take the arrangements home.
The dam dinner has been an opportunity for residents to celebrate their community since 2012 (with a couple of years off during the COVID-19 pandemic), and every dinner sees new faces.
“Every year it grows,” Perotte said. “People who live here come and they say, ‘We didn’t even know this was here.’”
The dinner, organized by the city of Goleta and the Goleta Valley Historical Society, started as a way for the city to give back to residents, and has become a beloved annual event at the end of each summer.
For Pete Wolf, the dinner’s location is special.
Wolf has been visiting Lake Los Carneros since he moved to Goleta in 1979. As a fisherman and a birder, he is very aware of the cycle of drought, fish deaths, and eutrophication that make it hard for Santa Barbara’s lakes to thrive.
“It’s a big fish tank and you can put as many bubblers in the fish tank, but if you don’t change the water, the fish still die,” said Wolf.
Wolf has been especially active in taking care of the lake since it was stocked with trout a couple years ago, which led to more fishing debris and litter.
He set up recycling containers along the dam and printed informational cards that include a QR code that lets people report the locations of offshore trash so that Wolf can pick it up in his weekly trips.
The dinner is a celebration of the community and its local businesses, resources and music, as well as the lake itself, highlighting what makes Goleta special.