In communities — small ones especially – there’s usually one big annual event that everyone just can’t miss, where residents can interact with each other and enjoy the summer.
Westlock will be hosting its 101st annual agricultural fair next month, while the Village of Clyde has its Summer Solstice.
Down south, Pickardville has its Canada Day bash — Dapp also hosts a July 1 event — while Busby has Farmers’s Days and Jarvie will hold Jarvie Days this coming weekend. Later in August is the Blue Suede Music Festival, an event that just seems to get bigger and better every year.
And in recent years even the tiny community of Flatbush, just beyond the northern border of Westlock County, has jumped on board to host Flatbush Rocks.
Five years ago Canadian rockers Trooper raised a little hell in the festival’s inaugural year, where part of the proceeds were donated towards the victims of the Slave Lake fire. And since then April Wine and Honeymoon Suite have headlined the annual event, which has become a staple of the local summer festival season.
But this year will be the first year the event won’t have funding from the Flatbush Community Association, which leaves the future of the festival uncertain. Thankfully this year’s event was able to proceed due to the financial backing of organizer Kandee Stadnyk.
Now sometimes as good as something is, it just doesn’t stick and that seems to be the case with Flatbush Rocks. Sometimes events become too big and too much for individuals to organize and border on needing committees and countless volunteers to make happen. Sometimes community events dwindle because they run stale or become too costly.
Whatever the case with Flatbush Rocks, it would be a shame to see it fall by the wayside, but with every ending comes a new opportunity.
If it is the last year for the festival, next year is just another opportunity to bring something new and fresh to the table and for Flatbush to celebrate its community spirit in a different way.
