Morden Multicultural Winterfest (MMW) has been bringing the celebration of Canadian winter and Morden's multicultural mosaic since 2008. held annually at the Morden Access Event Centre. Featuring multicultural food, entertainment and displays inside and winter activities outside. It has grown significantly over the years, as the community has grown and diversified as well.
This year, MMW Committee Member Shelly Voth explained the format is changing and expanding from the one location to multiple pavilions, featuring entertainment, food and displays from different regions around the world, in downtown Morden. All within walking distance, with the exception of the Canadian Pavillion, which will host winter activities such as skating, snow shoeing, skiing horse drawn sleigh rides and a bon fire to roast marshmallows. She added the lake provides more space for these activities.
Recently, the Morden Area Foundation awarded the MMW Committee a $5495 grant to purchase a shelter for the Canadian Pavillion. Voth explained why they requested these funds.
"That shelter would be a temporary shelter. It'll be a canvas shelter that's fully enclosed, or can be fully enclosed, and the City of Morden can put a heater in there for that event, we'll probably be serving hot chocolate, using it as a place for maybe some displays, and obviously a place to warm up as well."
She noted this will benefit the whole community.
"The great thing about this particular donation, Morden Area Foundation gave us, is we're also able to share this structure with some other events. The City of Morden is planning on using it for some of their events they have down there both in winter and summer, and there's also a few other nonprofit and fundraising events that are planning on using the shelter as well."
Voth said the cost of the shelter is just over $6000.
"It's probably about $1000 the Winterfest Committee will be covering on our own. That money comes from the fact that, for the last couple of years we had some donations coming in, but we had an online format for our Winterfest, due to COVID, so, we had a little bit of money leftover we were able to save for that."
Voth reminds people to mark their calendars for February 4th, 2023, to take in the full afternoon of activities and fun.
"The vision for the future would be, if this goes well this year, to expand that. Obviously, you look at Folklorama in Winnipeg and it's a multi-day event, it has many, many pavilions, is very well known across Manitoba. With the multiculturalism that we have in our area, I think we could follow suit."
