A new community event is being planned for Wiarton this summer.
South Bruce Peninsula recently heard from Mike Mason and Joe Vanderzand from the Wiarton Homecoming Weekend Committee on the new event geared to take place from Aug. 3 to the 5 at Bluewater Park as well as at the arena and community centre.
Vanderzand says the Wiarton Homecoming Weekend event is a spiritual successor to the long running Wiarton Rotary Club event.
“It’s basically born out of the civic long weekend that Rotary always ran with a midway, and Covid basically put the kibosh on the midway component of it. Last year was a bit of a struggle to pull something off. I did happen, but what came out of it is a few service groups came together and from that we came to realize is we should collaborate and get all our non-for-profit service groups in the area together and pull off an event,” says Vanderzand.
He says the new event will include pickleball, baseball, live music, a food concession, vendors, and more. Additionally, he says they are working to organize an Indigenous market.
“The old event ran for 82 years in this community, we are looking to build this thing to become the equivalent success of that and I anticipate the numbers will be right up there,” says Vanderzand.
Vanderzand adds he and Mason approached council during a meeting on March 5 to gauge how interested the town was in allowing the new event.
“There was no negative comments. Every councillor really praised us for what we are doing, but they are looking for staff to bring back a report. I believe that will come back at the beginning of April to see whether we will have their support in supplying the entire park,” says Vanderzand.
