Milken Scholars Beach Dinner for 102 at Tower 12, Santa Monica

The Milken Scholars Program, a nonprofit scholarship run through the Milken Institute, brings together students from Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. In July 2025 the program hosted about 100 of its scholars for an evening at Santa Monica beach, and we set up the picnic on the sand at Lifeguard Tower 12, just north of the pier.

The group arrived in a fleet of shuttles that pulled into the beach lot right behind the setup. The program team sent us its own seating diagram, and we built the layout to match: ten low picnic areas on rugs with pillow seating, arranged around a shaded buffet and beverage station. A Bose speaker with a microphone let the organizers address the whole group, and no umbrellas were used, which kept sight lines open.

Dinner came from Perry's Beach Cafe next door as individual boxed meals, and our team picked them up and carried them down to the buffet in time for the 5:15pm arrival. After eating, scholars had a complimentary games area with three cornhole sets, three ladder-toss sets, four Spikeball sets and three bocce sets. The program team told us afterward that the setup, speaker, games and food all went smoothly.