The Manteca Watermelon & Street Fair taking place Saturday-Sunday on June 7-8 is adding a mascot.

And the Manteca Chamber of Commerce would like help in coming up with a name.

The mascot that will be in the form of a watermelon, of course, will help draw further attention the fact that South San Joaquin County around Manteca is California’s largest watermelon growing region.

Most of the 250 to 300 vendor spaces have been sold with less than six weeks to go to the festival that kicks off the summer in Manteca.

New this year besides the mascot will be a watermelon costume contest on June 7 at 3 p.m.

Also the parking lot next to the Bedquarters will be converted into a community stage and dining area with food vendors on the adjacent 100 block of Main Street.

There will be a community stage that GK Music is in charge of as well as a large tent to shelter festival goers from the sun.

That is in addition to the beer garden and entertainment stage at Wilson Park with two different bands in each day.

The festival will offer a slice of summer as usual with the offering of watermelon drinks, watermelon eating contests, water balloon tossing contest, watermelon rolling, and a kids zone.

The June 7-8 downtown festival will take place each day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Information on the street fair can be found at the chamber website at manteca.org.

Anyone wishing to suggest a name for the watermelon mascot can send it to chamber@manteca.org.

In 2023, San Joaquin County produced 60,800 tons of the nearly 300,000 tons grown in California. There were 1,600 acres planted locally that produced a harvest valued at $32 million.

By contrast, the other local farm product Manteca celebrates in October, which is pumpkins, accounts for over 70 percent of California’s commercial pumpkin crop.

There were 73,000 tons harvested from 3,210 acres with an overall value of $30.3 million.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com