Hello neighbors and welcome back Spring!
For those of you who attended our 2023 Winter Carnival, thank you! It was great to meet you and your families and get to know some more members of our community. Our volunteers appreciate all of the detailed feedback we have received. It seems like most people enjoyed themselves thoroughly and that knowledge warms our hearts.
Our goal when planning the Winter Carnival was to arrange a quality gathering, free of barriers to entry for our community members. We were met with an abundance of support and encouragement that positively overwhelmed our small group of volunteers. Here's how we managed to make that happen:
The Sherwood Heights Community League received a little over $8000.00 from Strathcona County to be used towards an event for our community. As a group, we decided to use ALL of that funding to feed and entertain as many people as possible in any way we could. We had no idea how many people would be interested or would attend. Our volunteers hit the pavement to get the word out and canvassed as many local companies and organizations we could to see if they would be willing to participate in the event. The response we received was nothing short of astounding. Nearly every team we contacted responded back to us with offers of support; we were flooded with door prize donations, resource donations, offers for services to be provided, discounts on pricing, and help with getting the word out.
The individuals within our community were our greatest supporters by far. As we sat back on Saturday evening after a full day of activities, our small group of volunteers couldn’t help but smile at the results of all of our hard work. We want to send a heartfelt thanks to all of you for your support, whether it was a like and a share on social media, donation of a door prize, help with set up, clean up, moving tables, organizing people, filling coffee urns, or wiping down tables and chairs, thank you!
The following day, on Sunday, our volunteers were back at the Log Cabin bright and early to open the doors for our first ever Community Outgrown It Sale. Our available vendor tables quickly sold out, filling the hall with tables of gently used children's clothing, toys and gear ready for a new home! Our volunteers sold coffee and snacks at the door, our musical friends Glenna and Richard stopped by for a performance, and we spent the day chatting and connecting with even more members of our community.
Here are some fun facts about our weekend that you may find interesting:
Our social media posts alone reached over 13,000 people in and around Sherwood Park. That’s nearly 13% of the population of Strathcona County!
We were featured in the Sherwood Park News twice (even making the front page!).
For our Winter Carnival, we had nearly 400 people attend our activities. That includes over 350 people visiting us by day, and 200 for the Free Dinner and Dance.
For the Community Outgrown It Sale, we had between 120 and 150 people join us and the feedback was positive! During that event, we raised approximately $500 for our League which will help us put on more events for the community.
We collected and donate 125 LBS of food for the Strathcona Food Bank. We will be teaming up with them on future events and will be collecting food and cash donations at every future event we host.
We donated an entire truck full of children’s clothing and goods to the Strathcona County Clothesline.
We sold a few more memberships as well as gained some more volunteer support.
From the bottom of our hearts, our volunteers would like to thank you all for being a part of this great community we call home. I’ll see you around the neighborhood and hopefully at our future events and monthly meetings.
-Ehren Ackerman, President of the Sherwood Heights Community League
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