INNISFAIL – There was plenty of creative joy around the tables at The Coffee Cottage last weekend.
For the second weekend in a row volunteers made themselves available to help eager citizens prepare themselves for the second annual Innisfail Lantern Festival being held this year for the first time at Centennial Park on Aug. 20 from 3 to 11 p.m.
On Aug. 6 and 13 citizens had the chance to attend free two-hour afternoon lantern building workshops at The Coffee Cottage.
Everyone attending was provided with crafting materials to create their own lanterns for the event, which has a distinctive Alice in Wonderland feel with a “Through the Looking Glass” theme.
“This is fun and I want to participate in the community,” said Ava Thomson, an 11-year-old Innisfailian who attended the Aug. 13th workshop. “I like the craft part of it because I don’t make a lot of them at home.”
Community volunteer Tasha Busch facilitated the workshop on Aug. 13. While she offered parents and children various lantern-making tips for two hours other volunteers were busy in another room putting together lantern-making kits.
“Here we have all the supplies for them to create lanterns for the actual festival. People can get as creative as they want,” said Busch. “And then we suggest that they bring them down to the lantern festival and we'll put it up and light it up at night.”
Busch noted the festival this year at Centennial Park is a new location, following the inaugural event in 2021 that was held at the Innisfail and District Historical Village.
While everyone hopes the recent good weather will hold, the larger park venue will also offer scenic landscape views, especially at night when scores of lanterns will be lit up.
Busch said there is a “buzz” throughout the community for this year’s festival. The event has attracted sponsors and the Rotary Club of Innisfail will be hosting a barbecue.
“It will start at the parking lot and go all the way up the hill. We will be using the trees in that area. People can walk around and there will be bigger light installations,” said Busch. “We learned from what we did last year and how we can make it even better this year.
“Once you start seeing it light up it's quite a pretty thing.”
As well, the festival on Aug. 20 will have music and performers starting at 5 p.m. and going until 10 p.m.
There will be a Food Truck Festival from 3 to 10 p.m.; face painting and glitter tattoos from 3 to 9 p.m. and lantern decorating from 3 to 7 p.m.
The festival will have a kids’ Parade of Light at local senior residences starting at 6 p.m. This will be followed by a grand finale twilight celebration at dusk.
