Jam Fest a sweet success

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Published on Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Eoin Devereux
The Neepawa Press

Saturday, July 22 was a sweet day in Neepawa as Jam Fest returned to the ArtsForward building. The outdoor festival featured a wide array of events for all ages, including street vendors, an art show and musical entertainment.

Another big part of the festivities was the jam tasting competition, which featured 20 different varieties and involved the public voting for their favourite. The winner received 50 per cent of the money raised in the contest, with the other 50 per cent going to ArtsForward. This year, there was a tie initially between two jams for top prize, requiring an additional round of votes to decide the final victor. In an equally close decision, Leanne Goetz’s bumbleberry jam just edged out Jacqueline Rose’s pina colada jam. Goetz, who has been making jams for 30 years, said it was an honour to claim top prize, especially against such impressive competition.

As for the overall day, ArtsForward director of programming Rrain Prior said they were very pleased with the community response to this year’s fun.
“People have been very positive about this. There was some early concern about the weather and there was a little bit of rain early on. But the sky cleared up and the sun came out and made most of the day extremely pleasant,” noted Prior. “Every year, we try to add a little something for people to get excited about. This year, there were a few more varieties of vendors out there. The variety of entertainment of the musical jam sessions was more varied and there were more jams submitted for the competition. We’ve also expanded the street party component, the pot luck supper, to close out the fun. We wanted this to be as inclusive as possible and I think we accomplished that. Overall, people were very positive about the entire day.”
Prior added that ArtsForward remains very optimistic that they’ll be able to keep expanding upon this summer celebration and ensure it’s something the community can be proud of for years to come.