Spring Festival, a show of appreciation from downtown businesses to the community that supports them

 

The streets of downtown Whitecourt were bustling with activity on Saturday, June 2 as the Spring Festival took over. Presented by the Downtown Business Association, the five-hour long event featured a variety of different activities for families to take part in and many options to shop from. In the Midtown Mall parking lot there was a pop-up outdoor market with roughly 21 vendors taking part.

No matter where you were within the festival grounds live music could be heard. Bands were rocking, and buskers sang and played instruments along the sidewalks. There were several food trucks to taste from and a scavenger hunt around the 21 participating businesses.

Previously, the street festivals had been held by the Whitecourt Chamber of Commerce but, as Nancy Johnson explained, the association will be doing them from now on. “We decided to take that off the Chamber’s hands because they have so many other events and fantastic things they do. We thought we could help by taking over the Spring event.” They will also be taking over the fall street festival which is tentatively planned for September 8. Nancy is the vice-president of the Downtown Business Association as well as the owner of Beaver Creek General Store.

Several new additions joined the festival this time around including the Whitecourt Inn & Conference Centre’s new food truck, Servus Credit Union’s mobile escape room, and a train. Yes, that’s right, a train. “Probably the highlight of the entire festival was Paddy Stratton and his father’s homemade train. Out of the goodness of his heart, he gave rides to people all day long,” she said.

Nancy and Paddy figured he gave about 75 train rides which means he gave out around 2,250 individual rides. Granted, several riders went on for seconds, thirds, or maybe even tenths, but Paddy graciously gave out over 2,000 free tours in the downtown core during the five-hour festival. “I honestly can’t thank Paddy enough,” said Nancy.

The train was built in 1966 when Paddy was just six years old, and over the years it has been part of parades in Calgary, Edmonton, Fox Creek, Valleyview, Grande Prairie, and, of course, Whitecourt. Utilizing the train for an event like the festival and giving out free rides was a new adventure for Paddy and he anticipates that he will do so again in the future.

“We’d like to thank all the public that came out and enjoyed the festival and all the participating businesses and volunteers. It’s nice for the downtown businesses to be able to give back to the community and show our appreciation for them shopping local and supporting us. This was for you.”