The Peace Draft Horse Club will be donating $100,000 to schools and not-for-profits in the Grande Prairie area.
The money, raised during the 2020 Northern Spirit Light Show, will be distributed to 25 regional schools for their snacks and lunch programs, as well as organizations like the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital Foundation, Mighty Peace Day, and 3D Charity.
President of the Peace Draft Horse Club Jody White says with the restrictions in place last year, they didn’t quite know what to expect as far as participation. However, he says, as usual, the community came up big.
“The support we received each night, with donations to the food bank, was heartwarming,” he says. “We filled vehicles full of food, almost every night we operated, for various food banks in the area.”
He adds while it was heartbreaking not to be able to have the teams of horses and wagons on-site as they traditionally would be, they knew it was the right call to hold a modified event as soon as the first guests arrived.
“As soon as we saw people’s faces coming through in their cars, we knew we made the right decision,” he says. “The pay-it-forward would stretch out for hours some nights, with people paying for the vehicle behind them.”
The Peace Draft Horse Club says approximately 12,550 vehicles took in the event, which ran from mid-November to New Year’s Eve.