Grant money helps Storytelling Festival celebrate
Andrea Macko, Staff Reporter  The St. Marys Storytelling Festival will be able to weave a few more tales this year, thanks to a provincial grant.
    The annual festival received $11,912 from the Celebrate Ontario fund, which helps tourist events and festivals grow in the province. It was one of the 90 events that received funding of over 400 applications.
    “Last year’s festival celebrated Canada in story and song,” said festival co-ordinator Carol McLeod at the announcement. “This year, we’re taking on the whole world with a global theme, ‘Many voices, one world.’”
    At this year’s festival, taking place Sept. 5 to 7, there will be storytellers from around the world, and many will be using their native tongues to help tell their tales. The grant will help promote the festival, now in its fifth year, as well as attract story tellers and musicians to the event.
    Perth-Wellington MPP John Wilkinson says that the Celebrate Ontario fund helps to ensure that “more kids can come and bring their families” to small-town events such as the Storytelling Festival, “and bring their wallets to shop in our stores and eat in our restaurants.”
    Mayor Jamie Hahn called the festival “a source of pride in our community,” and thanked the volunteer organizers of the event for their tireless efforts.
    This is the second year in a row that the St. Marys Storytelling Festival has received a Celebrate Ontario grant. This year, the Liberal government doubled the total of the grant to $10 million.