St. Patrick's Church is hosting a Community Resource Fair on June 1.--Submitted Photo
asmith@medicinehatnews.com
St. Patrick’s Church will be hosting a Community Resource Family Fair on June 1, in hopes of connecting with families with resources in the region.
This is the first time the church has organized anything like this, said Karen-Anne Cherwonogrodzky, fair planning chair.
“We had a number of religious items donated to us. And some of them we just gave away at Easter. But some of them were of more value, so we thought we could do a garage sale of those,” said Cherwonogrodzky. “We thought at the same time that we wanted to give away some items that we would collect from the congregation for kids, over the summer, like sports equipment, toys, books, even some toiletries. Different things like that.”
From there, the event has grown significantly, with different members of the congregation coming up with various ideas and adding different activities, eventually beginning to invite different groups to come and participate.
Participants include the YMCA, Saamis Immigration, Bridges, Youth Action Society, Medicine Hat Family Services, Sanare Centre, Public Library, HUG & My Pace, Women’s Shelter, St. Vincent de Paul, Nurture Centre, Salvation Army, Mustard Seed and the City of Medicine Hat, which will all have tables inside the church basement, said Cherwonogrodzky.
“Then also, because St. Patrick’s is a National Historic Site, and people always enjoy tours, we’ve decided we would add the church tours. And then we have one of our members who is a hairstylist. And she said, ‘Well, I could do haircuts for a donation,'” said Cherwonogrodzky.
It’s been busy fitting everything in, said Cherwonogrodzky, as the Knights of Columbus will be selling a hot dog with a pop for $2, and someone has also volunteered to run karaoke for the duration of the event. Children’s activities will also be available for families.
“Whatever things that we don’t give away, whatever is left of the toys and the towels and sports equipment, we’re gonna give to the YMCA,” said Cherwonogrodzky.
The event will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Church, with the silent auction ending at 3:30 p.m.
