2023 Junior Gardeners Competition and Party in the Park A Great Success!

For immediate release: July 31, 2023

On July 29^th, 2023 Laurentian Valley Township hosted its 7^th Annual Junior Gardeners contest at Stafford Park during the annual Party in the Park event.

From May 27 to June 9, 2023 any youth age 16 or under were eligible to obtain a plant from Sunset Nursery in LV. We had 104 youth registered who chose a plant to grow and nurture over the past couple months. The contest highlights the township’s tagline “Grow with Us” and was chosen as a means of getting the youth of the community and neighbouring communities involved in events.

A big thank you once again to Alastair Hugli of Sunset Nursery Garden Centre & Greenhouse for judging the 84 entries of the 104 registered gardeners, the largest amount of entries to date!  Another thank you shoutout also goes to the volunteers who sit on the Stafford Park Recreation Committee for hosting the judging competition during their yearly Party in the Park event.  Every year the competition brings out more and more people who also get to enjoy the other festivities of the day!

The 2023 Junior Gardener winners include:
Ages 1 to 5

• 1^st Place Terry Mowat (Zinnia Flower)
• 2^nd Place Farrah Wasmund (Zinnia Flower)
• 3^rd Place Oliver McEwan (Banana Pepper Plant)
• 4^th Place Ella Fadock (Big Red Pepper Plant)

Ages 6 to 8

• 1^st Place Everlie Parr (Zinnia Flower)
• 2^nd Place Chelsea Mowat (Yellow Big Top Marigold Flower)
• 3^rd Place Mason Behm (Cherry Bomb Pepper Plant)
• 4^th Place Natalie Weckworth (Zinnia Flower)

Ages 12 to 16

• 1^st Place Aaryanna Forget-Mask (Zinnia Flower)
• 2^nd Place Mira Frolander (Tomato Plant)
• 3^rd Place Carson Lebourveau (Pepper Plant)
• 4^th Place Ethan Lebourveau (Tomato Plant)

“Congratulations to all the junior gardeners who participated this year! What an amazing 80% turnout - the best yet!” Navada Sargent, Planning and Recreation Coordinator.

This year’s Party in the Park event, hosted by volunteers of Stafford Park Recreation Committee, was a very well attended family fun event, that took place from 10 am to 3 pm at Laurentian Valley’s Stafford Park. The yearly event had a little something for everyone to enjoy including a vendor show, RY J’s Adventures bouncy castle, a BBQ lunch, fire department meet and greet and obstacle course for kids, raffles, Junior Gardeners Awards Ceremony, a ball hockey tournament and a washer toss tournament! Pre-registration was required for both tournaments with all proceeds of this event being re-invested back into the Park!

Stafford Park Recreation Committee volunteers were on site barbecuing, selling raffle tickets and running both tournaments. The winners of the washer toss tournament were Betty King and Mark Rathwell and team Benchwarmers won the ball hockey tournament!