A new non-profit organization has been formed in Airdrie whose mandate is to enrich the lives of children and to celebrate our cultural differences.

The Airdrie Children's Festival Society received it's incorporation from the government last Thursday and is already busy planning it's first event, according to Chair Pete Lewis who explained the first ever Airdrie Children's Festival is modelled after other successful festivals in Canada.  

"I guess it really just started as my own vision of seeing the need in the community for that and looking at other places like Calgary and Edmonton and Whistler who all have children's festivals and just how successful they've been year after year after year and just desiring to have that for our community."

After coming up with the original idea, Lewis then enlisted other engaged local residents who are all parents and have a desire to give back to the community to be on the board.

He says the society wants to strive to have an event that will not only have activities that are fun and learning based but that will expose children to things they might not usually get a chance to do and be inspired to do more.  The group wants to create something that will become a legacy for Airdrie.

The first ever Airdrie Children's Festival will go at Nose Creek Park on Saturday, May 26th from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.  Lewis says thanks to the generous support of Airdrie businesses, the entire event will be free for families.  He explains the festival will have five different components.

"The Children's Village which is an uber play area with some spectacular activities that we're still working on.  The Inspiration Station, which is really what the festival is founded on, enhanced learning opportunities for kids, tangible hands-on things.  The third area is free workshops that will go throughout the city and some onsite that day there'll be learning opportunities for kids in short story writing, pottery, and computer coding.  We'll have our entertainment stage that will have some professional children's performers supplemented with some local performers.  The whole event will be capped off in the evening with a free outdoor family movie."

The society is hoping to give back to the Airdrie community and create fun in learning opportunities for children.  Lewis says, "We want to create something that Airdrie and the surrounding communities can be proud of and that becomes a legacy that continues year after year and we can grow and eventually we'll be the community where others are looking at us like Edmonton and Calgary with their children's festivals."

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