Canvas Oak Bay Church hosted a free “Back to School Family Fest” on the Labour Day weekend, attracting more than 300 people to what Pastor Mike Blackaby hopes will be an annual event.
“It went really well. This is the first thing like this that we’ve ever done and we didn’t know how it would go, but the weather was great and it went amazingly smoothly,” said Blackaby.
“We had a lot of people asking if the event was going to run on an annual basis and I’m pretty sure that it will.”
The Oak Bay event took place on Willows Park green space and featured free food, bouncy castles for the kids, face painting, crafts, a photo booth and a variety of games with prizes.
Country and Christian music singer Lydia Simonds flew to Vancouver Island to volunteer her time as a performer at the event.
“She’s a friend of mine from Georgia, and she came up at her own expense to entertain folks at our event,” said Blackaby. “It was just so great to have her here.”
The generosity didn’t stop with the entertainment.
“We have friends with a food truck and they came to the event to help out. All we had to do was buy the groceries and they did all the cooking and provided hot food for everyone, at no cost,” said Blackaby. “We served more than 500 hot dogs, so that was really great.”
The Oak Bay Canvas Church came to the community about a year ago as a satellite campus of the original church in Langford.
Blackaby explained that the Langford church has been offering a similar event at Memorial Park in Langford on the Victoria Day weekend.
“They’ve been doing it for about five years now and their event has been growing annually. This year I think they had about 1,500 people attend,” said Blackaby.
“We’re hoping that we can mirror their success in the years to come.”
Oak Bay Canvas Church holds its services on a monthly basis at the Monterey Recreation Centre.
Information on the church, a schedule of services and a list of its activities can be found at canvaschurch.ca.
