Ziggy here…
The San Diego Kite Club received an email from The Freeman Company. A global leader in event planning. They create meaningful connections and have integrated full-service solutions for event management as well as new technologies to build loyalty trust between audiences and the world’s top brands.
When Sherry Huss and Nick Catanella contacted us in early July of 2025. They requested for kites to be flown at their Beach Camp event on August 6th, 2025. We were given the opportunity to fly for the company’s top 300 leaders. A wonderful celebration to recognize their family of employees and all their accomplishments. My job was to bring pilots with skill, knowledge and of course, amazing kite bags. This event was a fund raiser for our club. We raised $3,000.00 for one evening of flying thanks to the generosity of The Freeman Company and pilots who gave their time. They recognized our club deserves support and offered us funding to do our thing for their event. Here is a link to the Freeman Company Article.
I quickly worked on creating my top list of pilots and sent out an email. A few couldn’t make it but those that did are listed below.
Don Fox (Region 12 director of the AKA)
Max Plisskin (LA Kite Club)
Joe Hadzicki (Revolution)
Ray Miller (cars and Kites/ Hyperkites)
Glenn Meader
Shawn Farrow
Rick Spurgeon & Diane Spurgeon
Ziggy Santa Maria
Kite Country (Ryan, Kevin Heredia)
Here are the important details I shared with the pilots.
– We need to be in the sand by 5:00pm setting up. Kites are in motion by 5:30pm and we fly until 7:00pm. Some company leaders may want to talk, fly or get close. We should be prepared to tell them it’s not a good time, or stand over there or come fly. We are allowed to interact with the top 300 leaders and let them fly if interested before dinner starts. Dinner starts at 7:00 pm and all kites must be put away.
– Location: Silver Strand Beach (the southern most entrance – between lifeguard stand #1 & 2)
– We had some concerns about the king tide taking up too much of the beach. This did not happen and we were lucky enough to fly quads, dual lines, single line display kites, fighter kites and a ground display soccer ball provided by Max Plisskin.
The event went as smoothly as we could ask for. Being an evening fly with the wind dropping, it could have gone terribly wrong. However, the wind was present the entire time and everything went exceptionally well. The event coordinator sent me a post-event email explaining how thrilled they were with our ability to fly, entertain and paint the sky with kites. We may have future fund raising opportunities with The Freeman Company because of our involvement this time around. One thing to be mindful of is how Sherry and Nick treated our organization and club. This has a lot to do with how we represent ourselves. They saw a modern user-friendly website, credibility through our past work and a professionalism in my ability to communicate what we can do based on their needs. I helped to inform them about the world of kiting, what pilots must be prepared for and some of the obstacles that could potentially arise. As you can see from the time of their event and details provided above. We did need to come prepared for low wind, small flying area and unpredictable conditions. Through our emails back and forth we found a good team in each other and I prepared the Freeman Company for all outcomes. In preparing for this event. Revolution offered to donate a kite to one of the top 300 leaders. Nick Catanella was the lucky soul who got the kite equipped with handles and lines. Rightfully so, since he was the bright minded individual who said we should have kites in the sky.
I am super proud to have coordinated this event, fund raise and bring fliers together. The biggest reward is exposure. We, the San Diego Kite Club, and it’s volunteers have done something really special. We performed our duties at this event in front of a global leader in event planning. In front of their top 300 leaders. Which can only bring attention to kites, how they can be used in event planning and show how talented our club is.
Kite flying deserves more exposure and I’m 100% sure we did that in front of the right audience.
CHEERS to the kite fliers of the word and to the Freeman Company