Page 6 THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2026 FESTIVAL | FROM Page 1 This year was only the 21st festival due to a cancellation in 2020 due to the pandemic. In 2023 rain on Saturday night also drove the awards ceremony indoors. “I grew up on Revere Beach and, for me, it’s quite personal we have events on it,” she reacted before thanking Mayor Patrick Keefe. “He helps keep this event running,” she said. “We couldn’t do it without him.” Keefe, in turn, thanked the City Council and members of his administration and the event organizers for their efforts. He added that city funds appropriated for the event “are well spent to make sure we have a safe event. It’s about how we’re a coastal community and have America’s fi rst public beach,” a reference to the offi cial establishment of Revere Beach in 1896. “It’s about welcoming everyone to Revere Beach,” Hamel agreed. “Our mission is to preserve and enhance America’s oldest public beach in three areas, economic, environmental and social. This event combines all three and highlights how we all belong here. It’s a microcosm of what Revere Beach is all about.” He also said the festival’s sand sculpture theme, Boston Welcomes the World, featuring soccer balls and players relating to the World Cup being held at stadiums across the United States, including Foxboro Stadium and co-hosting nations Canada and Mexico, dovetailed with the idea of a place where everybody can go and feel at home. Summer is Here! Established 1978 Mid-grade Regular 3. 4.3 4. $4.7 Full Service ULS $.9 Order online at angelosoil.com Kerosene Now Available! Another example of the cachet the festival has gained was a sand sculpture commissioned by marketing fi rm Extra Credit to promote a new Netflix TV series, The Hawk, starring Will Ferrell as an aging golfer coming out of retirement. “We thought it would be a great fi t,” Extra Credit associate producer Milo Nichols said. Netfl ix was one of the corporate sponsors of the festival and he was giving out promotional hats and beer koozies, which are insulated sleeves used to keep beer and soda cans cold. As a resident of Los Angeles, he’d never been to Revere Beach before. “It’s lovely,” he said. Neither Boston Welcomes the World, on which all the sculptors worked, nor the Will Ferrell piece were in the festival’s competition between sculptors coordinated by coorganizers Broken Glass. “It’s never an easy decision to make,” Broken Glass sculpting instructor Melineige Beauregard said of the decision. As he had in 2024, Jobi Bouchard of Quebec won First Prize, the People’s Choice Award and Sculptor’s Choice chosen by the other artists, for his shell-like sculpture Odyssey, possibly an allusion to the new film of the same name. Second place went to his fellow Canadian Marie-Line Gagn? for her sculpture of an armadillo Sèveline Beauregard from Canada’s entry, “Told You So” called Overprotection. Third place went to Belgian Hanneke Supply for the eye laden Digital Hideout. A connection to the World Cup was Belgium beating the United States in the Round of 16, as was East Boston resident Ndricim “Jimmy” Bejko’s creation The Final Countdown, which was inspired by the World Cup trophy. Bejko, a professional sculptor, is originally from Albania, where he attended one of the country’s few artistic high schools. He came to the US in 2005 and first saw the sand sculptures on Revere Beach in 2008, which prompted him to start working with sand. “Sand sculptures are ephemeral,” Hamel noted. “They disappear, but the artists come here.” “The artists give us something to look forward to every July,” Keefe added. Sunday evening was a perfect night for fi reworks, as they went off without a hitch. Third place: Hanneke Supply of Belgium for “Digital Hideout”. FLEET CARD Check Out Our LOW PRICES!
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