There will be another “Miracle on Church Street” market in Fort Langley next year, organizer Rachelle Cashato has decided.
“We’re going to have it again,” Cashato told the Langley Advance Times after the two-weekend non-profit outdoor festival wrapped up on Sunday, Dec. 15.
Running Friday-to-Sunday, Dec. 6 to 8 and 13 to 15, the the pop-up park between Church Street, Mary Avenue, and Glover Road drew a good response, Cashato said, with thumbs-ups from both vendors and visitors.
“It was really, really positive,” Cashato enthused.
“It turned out even better than I imagined.”
Cashato described how she modelled the Fort Langley event on a smaller, but similar market she had organized a few years ago in Squamish, utilizing some unused property in the community.
When she saw the temporary park space that was built around some boarded-up buildings, she approached the Eric Woodward foundation which owns the site, and they agreed to let them use the space free of charge.
“Interim use of these spaces is important,” Cashato observed.
“That space is such a great space. If it didn’t have the buildings, it would be even greater.”
Miracle on Church street was designed to encourage pedestrian traffic from the market to circulate through the rest of the community, she explained, with free hot chocolate and family photos offered down the road at Trinity House, in cooperation with Trinity Western University (TWU).
In the other direction, TWU was offering light displays and Christmas movies on campus at the Northwest Auditorium
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During the market, the Township of Langley Spirit Stage presented entertainers such as Emily Taylor Adams, Top Line Vocal Collective, and Mark Schurch.
There was also a tree market, face painting, food trucks, Christmas crafts, and hands-on encounters with miniature ponies dressed up as reindeer,
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All proceeds went to benefit market charitable partners Langley Hospice, Langley Animal Protection Society (LAPS), and LifeApp.
LAPS hosted a vendor booth that gave out out prize packs, informational material and collected canned food donations for the dogs and cats at the shelter.
LAPS executive director Jayne Nelson said the shelter booth distributed all 150 sample kits donated by the Royal Canin dog and cat food company, which contributed $1500 in food coupons to the shelter.
“That’s a lot of happy kittens,” Nelson commented.
Langley Hospice Society moved its Celebrate a Life trees to the market, an annual tradition that allows visitors to decorate the trees with hand written memorial ornaments bearing the names of loved ones or pets.
Donated by Dogwood Christmas Tree Farm, the trees were sporting dozens and dozens of such ornaments near the end of the second Saturday, but Hospice society volunteer Donna Porter said they don’t keep a tally.
“We don’t measure,” said Porter.
“The numbers are not important.”
Porter and other trained volunteers were available to lend a listening ear for those who wished to talk.
There was also a memorial book for people to write in.
In the past Celebrate a Life was held at Willowbrook Shopping Centre but the space was not available.
dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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