By Mark Squibb/February 17, 2022
The City of Mount Pearl was one of 181 communities approved for provincial Come Home Year grants last week, and Mayor Dave Aker said the $2,000 will go towards the annual City Days festival this summer.
“Our thinking is that we’ll use the money to have a little bit of a bigger bang for our buck for City Days, especially our final night,” said Aker. “But we’ll also use the funding to do some promotion for people who are living away.”
He said the aim of the advertising will be to attract folks back home to Mount Pearl this summer. “Especially for City Days, because that’s our centerpiece event,” said Aker.
And although Monday’s fresh dumping of snow was a stark reminder that we are still in the middle of winter, Aker said it’s important to begin planning for summer now.
“We have to start sooner rather than later, because we need to get the message out because people need to begin making their plans, whether they’re driving or flying or however they want to come to this province,” said Aker. “We want to encourage them to start thinking about having a vacation here in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as Mount Pearl.”
Due to COVID restrictions, City Days 2020 was held virtually, and the City held small scale events targeted towards families and seniors in 2021. The beloved Frosty Festival has been cancelled these past two years because of the pandemic.
Aker said that being able to host large scale events once again, without throwing caution entirely to the wind, is good for both the economy and for people’s mental and social health.
“I think people are really excited to get out and to be able to do things,” said Aker. “But the key to it is that we’ve got to get to the point very soon, not just with Come Home Year but with City Days, that we do announce our intentions to go ahead with it. I think it will be good psychologically for families and residents and business too, that we have something to look forward to this coming summer, and I think it’s important that we get off the mark pretty quickly with the communication.”
