Hundreds of children enjoyed the third annual What’s Hoppening in 100 Mile House.
Held in the 100 Mile Community Hall on Saturday, March 30 the Easter-themed event featured dozens of fun carnival games and activities for families to enjoy. It’s organized each year by the South Cariboo Chamber of Commerce and a group of local volunteers spearheaded by Louise Mayes.
“Basically the idea is just for the kids to have fun. We have the volunteers who come out which is huge,” Hayes said. “With the growth of it we know the families appreciate it. They can come out and enjoy themselves and play with things they don’t normally get to play with. It’s a family-oriented approach and I think it’s great to see it.”
Parents like Riad Hess especially appreciated getting the chance to celebrate Easter with the community. Hess said it takes a lot of volunteer hours to put on an event of this scale on for kids and it’s really nice to see 100 Mile House put that much effort into the young people of the town.
“It’s great to be able to just come down, see lots of friendly faces, the kids can play games and don’t have to wait astronomically long line ups like in the city,” Hess said. “It’s also a nice atmosphere for the adults with everything being inside and in a contained area.”
Hayes said the event was a huge success with so many people coming through over the course of the day they started to run out of some treats. Fellow volunteer and president of the South Cariboo Chamber of Commerce Donna Barnett estimated around 1,500 people attend throughout the day.
“It’s once again a massive success. We issued 400 passports today and were almost out of food, which is great,” Barnett said. “Everyone just had a really good time.”
Barnett also praised the volunteers who helped make the event happen noting they had 40 volunteers who came out to help, including 16 from the 100 Mile Lions Club alone. Without them she said the event wouldn’t be able to happen.
“We’re just very fortunate to have all those people come out and help and have fun too,” Barnett said.