The great news for this region is, Hawkesbury has been doing a really great of hosting summer Events over the past few years. The even better news is, almost all of these annual Events are pretty much entirely free to the general public. Unfortunately, the really bad news is, it’s getting really expensive to plan and run the larger Events.

The lineup for the 2025 version of the ‘Festival Multiculturel de Hawkesbury Multicultural Festival’ [link] was announced way back in May, it’s Hawkesbury’s fourth Multicultural Festival, and with incredible and diverse Francophonie talent like country-folk chansonnier Kristine St-Pierre [link], L’Orignal born and raised chanteuse, Manon Séguin [link], Montreal-based comedian (who spent waaaay too much time making fun of Vankleek Hill) Mehdi Bousaidan [link], the dynamic Elyzabeth Diaga & Queens of Rock [link] and. of course, the legendary Roch Voisine [link], it had the highest profile performers in the short history of the Festival.

The ‘Multicultural Event’, as well as the two-day Country-Blues Festival, weekly art classes with local artist, Shanna Steals, and concerts by Hawkesbury-Grenville based band, Feelin’EZ, Foremen & Company, and local singer Yvon Cayen, were all possible this past summer thanks in large part to a $100,000 grant from FedDev Ontario — a federal agency partially dedicated to funding projects in rural communities [link] — to pay for the renovation to the downtown-based, and long neglected park, ‘Place des pionniers’ in 2022.

This past April, the Town of Hawkesbury applied for, and later received, $50,000 from the United Counties of Prescott and Russell’s (UCPR) ‘Regional Community Investment Fund’ (RCIF) to pay some of the costs for the Multicultural Festival and 2025 Canada Day celebrations [link]. The RCIF is a relatively new program that supports “the development of projects encouraging and supporting community and cultural well-being initiatives in the region”, according to an article in the Hawkesbury-based Tribune-Express, published in 2024 [link]. “Projects eligible for the fund must support community, cultural and wellness activities such as special events, city beautification and tourism activities, or contribute to the health and well-being of UCPR residents. For example, sporting events, interior and exterior recreational facilities could be eligible for the fund.”

The first three of Hawkesbury’s ‘Multicultural Festivals’ were mostly paid for by grants from the federal ‘Communauté Francophone Accueillante’ (CFA) [link], to the tune of $70,000, as well as various sponsorship deals with local businesses. The grants from the CFA to Hawkesbury were announced way back in 2019, but started in 2020 when the City received $1.3 million over three years to pay for programs to help Francophonie immigrants integrate into the community [link], including the Multicultural Festival. The funds end this year, with no guarantee of future payouts. The current administration of Hawkesbury has agreed to put aside $35,000 in their latest budget for future support of the Multicultural & Canada Day Festivals. Hawkesbury council initially put aside $119,000 for this year’s Multicultural Festival but, even though the Festival was only two-days this year — down from three in previous years, the expected cost grew to $154,000.

Because talent isn’t cheap.

Way back in 2012, and 2013, I used to take my son (back then there was only one) to the Pioneer Park, to play on the tiny, plastic, fairly dirty, playground at the very back of the park, there was also a gentlemen with a giant pet parrot, who would hang out at the entrance to the park who was always available for photos. And that was pretty much was all the Park had to offer. This was before the renovations, and even before the deeply personal gift of a parcel of land immediately to the west of the nearly derelict Pioneer Park to the Town of Hawkesbury by local businessperson, Panna Chowdhury — who sold the land to the city for a dollar in memory of his late wife, Sudipta [link].

Currently, the city council in Hawkesbury is hoping to receive more funding from both the CFA and the RCIF in the future so that the Multicultural Festival remains free for all.

…yeah, so anyway, I arrived at the Festival at 7pm on Friday night, just as Manon Séguin was warming up but, after parking my car, I realized I was totally unprepared for the rain that had been sputtering off and on all day. So I turned my little boogie machine around, and hightailed back to Vankleek Hill to get my rain jacket. Back to Hawkesbury I went, by the time I got back, and got my camera ready, the rain had stopped. Whoopsie. I managed to arrive barely in time to get a few shots of Manon just before she finished. Double whoopsie.

So… here are a few photos of Manon at the Festival, and a whole bunch of Roch Voisine, as well as a lot of people wearing rain jackets. I’ll have shots from Day Two of the Festival soon. So go ahead and click on the first photo to get the carousel going. I hope you enjoy them… it’s good to be productive again.