A much-anticipated weekend of fun and activities is back.
The South Porcupine Winter carnival kicks off tonight (Feb. 10) and runs until Sunday, Feb. 12 with fireworks over Porcupine Lake.
There's a change of location for this year's event that organizers are looking forward to.
The majority of the activities are being held at Northern College instead of throughout the community.
“We’re hoping that people can go there and hunker down for the day,” said Joanne Hagger-Perritt.
“We’ve got stuff all over the college, plus the college itself will have its cafeteria open and offering pretty much their regular menu for the weekend.”
People can expect classics like the penny sale and penny bingo, laser tag and virtual reality games, as well as carnival-style games and inflatables. The cafeteria will be open throughout the weekend and there is a craft show in the pub.
“And we’ve really gone all out this year with our inflatables and a fantastic partnership with AB Promotions from Kirkland Lake,” she said.
The winter carnival attracts hundreds of people through the weekend.
A committee of about six people works year-round to organize and an "army" of volunteers help out for the event, said Hagger-Perritt.
“There’s a lot of international students who are very excited about the carnival and who are also offering to volunteer … so that’s been really, really terrific. And, of course, Roland Michener is always good to feed us young volunteers from there. We get an army of about 90 volunteers over the course of the weekend to help run the activities,” she said.
There's a nominal cost for some of the activities, but most are funding by South Porcupine Pride. Most of the organization's money is raised through Jackpot City, where volunteers work a bingo session every second week. In return, the group gets a share of the bingo proceeds.
One of the biggest projects we have, of course, is winter carnival so that’s where the majority of our funds go into children’s games, children’s activities, renting those bouncers and certainly paying for those fireworks,” she said.
Donations are also welcome throughout the year and anyone looking to volunteer can reach out to Hagger-Perrity via Facebook messenger.
“We’re actively looking for people to assist with our bingos every second week. It’s a 2-hour, 15-minute commitment every second week, but we have to actively recruit at this point because we some issues that will be holding people away from the slots that they normally volunteer for. We’re really, really looking to have some more people help us out,” she said.
The full schedule of events for the weekend is:
