By Louis Zylka
The 830 Times
The Sacred Heart Spring Festival brought dozens of families together on Sunday and sold more than 15,000 tickets.
The annual spring festival is organized and hosted by Sacred Heart Church and Sacred Heart Catholic School (SHCS), raising proceeds for the church and school. Mill and Greenwood
Streets were closed off with tents, booths, food trucks and festival-goers filling up the streets and yards of the church and the grounds of the Val Verde County Courthouse.
Volunteers sold $1 tickets for families to purchase and use for
the Val Verde County Courthouse. The 2025 Sacred Heart Spring Festival had booths and tents
set up outside the Sacred Heart Church and the courthouse on Sunday. Children participated in
face-painting, arts-and-craft booths and more fun activities during the festival. (Photo by Louis
Zylka)
games and food. Stephanie
Gonzalez, a volunteer at the ticket booth, said her team counted over 7,000 sold tickets by 2
p.m. By around 4 p.m., the ticket booth counted more than 15,000 tickets sold.
A variety of games were set up on the courthouse grounds, including fishpond games, bean bag
racing, plastic ax throwing and free throws at a basketball hoop.
Tents were also set up for
children to buy cascarones (eggshells filled with confetti) and a miniature train was brought to the festival to give children rides around the street.
Vendors filled up the space front of the church, selling burgers, corn on the cob and tacos.
Vendors food trucks included Chintos Manufacturing and River Rat BBQ. More food was
provided near the SHCS cafeteria, including Filipino food, nachos and gorditas.
Guests got to take home prizes in activities taken throughout the day, such as a cakewalk, plantwalk and loteria card game inside SHCS’s gym. Viviane Salinas, a CCD (confraternity of
Christian Doctrine) teacher, volunteered at the cakewalk and said her booth had an amazing turnout. She said the cakewalk started with 120 cakes and pastries, both store-bought and
homemade, and then finished around 4 to 5 p.m. with around 20 prizes left.
A live and silent auction was held throughout the day with prizes given out at the end of the festivities, which included a grill, a treadmill and trips for family-themed parks like Sea World.
Del Rio resident Cha Cha Dolan said she donated a two-night stay at an Airbnb (a bed and breakfast) for the live auction.
Alma Soto and her husband, Bob Soto, were in charge of putting together this year’s spring festival. Alma and Bob were helping manage the entire event throughout the day, and both of
them spoke with The 830 Times to say how it was “a great success.” (see video above for complete comments)
“(The festival) has been amazing, and it went beyond our expectations,” Alma said.
Alma and Bob thanked everyone who was involved in the festival, including the sponsors, volunteers and families who attended and supported their local school and church.
