By Daily Press staff
The first annual Westside Scavenger Hunt will be held on Feb. 29. The event will be held at the PenMar Recreational facility at 1341 Lake St. in Venice and will run from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. First prize is $1,000. There will be trophies awarded for the top college team and the best fraternity/sorority team. Teams have the chance to win additional prizes donated by merchants in the Venice and Santa Monica business community.
As the name suggests, the event will primarily focus on the Westside of the city. This is the first of five Scavenger Hunts planned for the Los Angeles metro area this year. The first four scavenger hunts are qualifying events leading up to the final, $250,000 Labor Day Scavenger Hunt. The Labor Day “hunt” will be a two-day event open to everyone. The top 10 teams in each of the four qualifying events will have free entry into the Labor Day Scavenger Hunt.
From 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. teams will register. There is no limit on the number of members that can be on a team. At 9 a.m. all teams will be given the list of 250 items to be found. From that point, the teams have until 6 p.m. to accumulate as many items as possible from the list. Each item on the list is given a point value from one to 10 based upon the level of difficulty in finding the item. The point values give teams options of using various strategies.
The event is the effort of The Real Opportunity Management Network, a nonprofit organization with the objective of providing opportunities to those disadvantaged due to government cutbacks. All food collected from the Scavenger Hunt will be donated to the Fred Jordan Mission in Los Angeles. The effort will eventually be expanded to other cities around the world and within the United States. Anyone interested in becoming a part of this effort or seeking more information are encouraged to contact Gary Patterson at (310) 493-5511 or at the Web site www.thescav-engerhunter.com.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 21, 2004. Read the original PDF.