Events

Sixty Years of Borrego Days, and the Kids Led the Way

Posted October 17, 2026

Written by Peter KellnerEventsOctober 17, 2026

BASIC marched down Palm Canyon Drive this morning with a banner, an armful of balloons, and a few dozen Learning Academy students in hats. Now we are at the booth giving away books. Come find us.

It is one o’clock on Saturday afternoon, the parade is done, and BASIC is still here. We are at booth #60 and #61, on the opposite side of the grounds from the food trucks, for the rest of today and all day tomorrow. Every child who stops by leaves with a free book, every spin of the wheel wins something, and we can sign up a child under five for the Imagination Library on the spot. Look for the blue banner and the balloons.

The 60th Borrego Days Desert Festival could not have ordered better weather. Low 80s, an overcast sky, and a breeze that kept the whole morning comfortable. By 8:30 the parade lineup behind the Mall was a happy mess of folklórico skirts, ponies, vintage trucks, and one white Jeep with a very important passenger. BASIC’s spot in the line was easy to find. Look for the blue shirts.

Find BASIC

Booth #60 and #61, Christmas Circle

Where

Opposite side of the grounds from the food trucks

When

All afternoon today, and all day Sunday

At the booth

Free books, a prize wheel, Imagination Library sign-ups

The kids, in blue, under a lot of balloons

The BASIC entry this year was simple: balloons and hats. Dozens of balloons tied to a wagon and a stroller and to the kids themselves, antenna headbands bobbing on springs, star-shaped sunglasses, and a few very small marchers who had clearly dressed for the occasion. The kids carried the banner that says what we do in one line: Helping Borrego Learners From Cradle-2-Graduation.

Every one of those blue shirts says “Learning Academy” on it, and that is the point. Most of the children marching this morning spent four weeks with us this summer in reading and math. Some have been coming since they were in second grade. Walking down Palm Canyon with them, waving at parents and teachers on the curb, is the closest thing BASIC has to a victory lap. Out in front the whole way was Flor Gomez, antennae on, an armful of balloons in hand, leading the entry down Palm Canyon with more enthusiasm than the rest of us put together.

A word about the head gear. Everybody got antennae. The little ones put them on like crowns and would not take them off. The older students, the high schoolers who volunteer with us, were noticeably less thrilled about sparkly balls on springs, and wore them anyway, all the way down the route, in support of BASIC. That is what a good volunteer looks like.

Some of the students who marched were in our very first Learning Academy classes. Some were in kindergarten reading club last spring. A few are now the high schoolers holding the banner. Cradle to graduation is not a slogan when it walks past you in a parade.

Balloons, it turns out, are the right prop for a parade in a breeze. They pointed the same way all the way down Palm Canyon, which is more than can be said for the antennae.

Congratulations Martha Deichler, Grand Marshal of the Borrego Days Festival Parade!

The white Jeep at the front of the parade carried Martha Deichler, Board Advisor to BASIC and now a member of the Borrego Springs school board, after fourteen years as a district administrator who made sure Borrego students found the help that was out there for them. Nobody has done more to connect this town’s families with this town’s programs. Seeing her at the head of the line, with a star wand and a visor, felt exactly right.

If you have ever had a child in a Borrego Springs classroom, there is a fair chance Martha is the reason you heard about a program, a form, a scholarship or a ride. We could not be prouder to have her name on our board page, or to see it on the side of the lead car.

For the length of Palm Canyon Drive the first thing most of the crowd saw was a sign reading “Grand Marshal Martha Deichler.” Several people on the curb read it aloud and cheered. We would have done the same.

The booth: free books, a prize wheel, and a line for boba

By ten o’clock the booth at Christmas Circle was open. Ken Collard was BASIC’s point person for the whole event, from setup through execution. He had the canopy, the banner, the tables and the shelves up before the parade with help from Richard “Dick” Fausel and Flor Gomez, fresh from leading the parade.

The shelves are the main event. Every book on them is free. Picture books, chapter books, English and Spanish, and a child can take as many as they will read. Dick worked the book table through the morning, which mostly meant handing a book to a kid and then watching them come back for a second one.

Next to the books, two Learning Academy volunteers ran the prize wheel. Every spin wins something. And at the end of the table, under the “Celebrating 10 Years” sign, anyone with a child under five could sign up for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library on the spot: a free book in the mail every month until kindergarten. Eighty-two Borrego Springs children are enrolled today, and the sign-up sheet got longer all morning.

Peter Kellner, Polly Macuga and Barbara Coates have the booth this afternoon, and the tables are restocked for Sunday. If you are at the festival later today or any time tomorrow, stop by. We would love to meet your kids.

One scouting report for festival-goers: the longest line on the grounds all morning was for Beachin’ Boba. It stretched across the grass by ten and stayed that way. Plan accordingly, get your drink, and then come find us on the other side of the park. The books will still be there, and so will the wheel.

While you are at it, the food trucks are the landmark: stand with your back to them and look across the grounds for the white canopy with the blue banner. That is us.

Around the lineup

A few things we saw while we waited for the parade to start. Folklórico dancers in full skirts, checking each other’s flower crowns in the parking lot. A pony cart with purple ribbons. A four-plane flyover that stopped every conversation for about thirty seconds. The Borrego Springs Unified School District behind its “Better Together” banner, with K-12 Principal Victoria Baay in the thick of it, as she always is. The kids adore her, and it shows in every picture. And the stagecoach carrying this year’s Miss Borrego Springs court, crowns on top and gowns inside.

It is a small town’s parade in the best sense: nearly everyone marching knows nearly everyone watching, and the lineup in the lot is as much of a reunion as the route itself.

Nine young women from Borrego Springs High School competed in the 2026 Miss Borrego Springs Pageant last Saturday at the Performing Arts Center. Congratulations to all nine. The pageant is not a beauty contest. It is for students willing to give their time all year to represent Borrego Springs at civic and business events, and the court on that stagecoach this morning had already started.

Here is the part we care about most: in a year or two we fully expect to see their names on BASIC scholarship applications. We would be delighted to write every one of those checks. The pageant celebrates what these young women are doing for Borrego Springs right now. A BASIC scholarship is how the town says thank you when they are ready for what comes next.

They will have help getting there. Sylvana Meeks, once Miss Borrego Springs herself, mentors every contestant, and with scholarships from the Borrego Springs Rotary Foundation virtually every member of the court goes on to higher education. We caught her this morning hurrying a contestant to the lineup, banner under one arm, which is roughly how she spends October.

The county came too. San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond was in the lineup this morning with Tammy Baker, a director of the Borrego Water District, the two of them working the staging area the way everyone else was: on foot, saying hello. Borrego Springs is a long drive from the county seat, and it matters that our supervisor makes it for the one weekend the whole town is in one place. We were glad he got to see the kids in blue.

Why we do this

BASIC has had a booth at Borrego Days for four years now, and the reason is simple. This is the one weekend when the whole town is in one park. Families who have never heard of the Imagination Library walk past the sign. A parent asks what the Learning Academy is, and a kid in a blue shirt answers. A high school senior takes a scholarship flyer. Every program we run, from cradle to graduation, was represented at one table on the grass today, and most of it was represented by the students themselves.

Thank you to everyone who marched, set up, stood a shift, or stopped by. And if you have not stopped by yet, there is the rest of today and all of Sunday.

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