The 82nd annual Long Beach Sand Sculpture Contest took place at Granada Beach on Aug. 16 and 17. Some of the sand sculptures that were made were made included dinosaurs, rocket ships, guitars and the traditional sand castle.
Community members who registered online for the contest were able to compete on Sunday.
Sue McGrew, along with four other professional sculptors, worked on one large, creative sand sculpture for the event.
“[For this] sculpture… it took an entire two days to pile the sand and compact it,” McGrew said.
She said the journey that led her to sand sculpting started at a very young age.
“I think I started when I was two years old in my sandbox,” McGrew said. “When I started doing it as a hobby seriously was in high school. I did it through college as a hobby. After I graduated, I just started to competing more seriously.”
The community event was organized by Rotaract Long Beach, a club dedicated to giving its members leadership skills, according to Rotaract’s website.
Rotaract member, Angel Chung Cutno said that the event took a year to coordinate. She also said that the club had to “work very diligently for the first five months” in order to offer attendees a worthwhile event.
“There’s food, free goodies, professional sand sculptors and it’s at the beach,” Cutno said.
Along with sand sculptures, some of the things the event had were free massages, free popsicles, funnel cakes and clothing accessories.
The Rotaract Club was also accepting donations for Long Beach Library Foundation.
“The Library Foundation’s mission is to provide support to enhance the Long Beach Public Library and encourage literacy and education for all members of the community,” according to the foundation’s website.
Attendee Gloria De Leon, 87, said the last time she had been to Granada Beach was when she was “seven or eight.”
She recalled a simpler time when people used to make sand sculptures for fun. She said she was surprised and unaware that people make these types of sculptures professionally.
“I have really been amazed [by the sculptures],” De Leon said. “I’m glad I came.”