Community comes together to put on annual Sprague family days celebration

Sprague will host its annual Sprague Fest Family Fun Day on Aug. 8, starting off with a pancake breakfast at 8 a.m., with proceeds going to support the Sprague Community Centre. The traditional parade along Main Street starts at 10:30 a.m. The event then hosts a day of music, games for all ages, including pickleball and cornhole, along with a highly competitive Bingo tournament starting at 2:30 p.m.

A petting zoo, magician, wood carving demonstration and beer garden from noon until 10 p.m. will keep the social activities going for the hundreds expected to attend.

Doris Hovorka, who has been a volunteer with the festival since it began over 20 years ago, said the secret is variety.

“We always have a good crowd because we have events for all ages … all the folks that used to live around here come to visit for the day and catch up on things. We’ve been doing this for very many years.”

“We usually get about 500 people, but people come and go all day,” she said. You get a different crowd that comes in the morning in comparison to those who come during the day and those that stop in for the social in the evening. And of course, the kids come out because there’s all kinds of things for them to do.”

Hovorka, who is 87 years old and used to be the principal of the local school, knows her community through-and-through and says that without the cadre of volunteers in Sprague, none of this would be possible. She gives full credit to people like Jeremy Delorme and also Tom Hebel who helps out with the administration and permits. There are also a few others who insist on staying anonymous, but the community is changing before her eyes she says.

“We have new volunteers showing up, usually parents, but the community is getting smaller. Families aren’t as big anymore and so the school isn’t as big anymore either … I came here in ‘66 and taught school for almost 50 years. We had over 400 students then, but now it’s about 100 and the parents are hard pressed going away (to the city) for things,” said Hovorka.

But in addition to the long-standing cadre of local volunteers that make the event run so efficiently, new folks are always eager to help out with all the different aspects of putting on such a successful and longstanding festival, from clean-up to counting the donations.

“It’s a lot of work, and we spend pretty much all the next day cleaning and doing what needs doing, but we have quite a few volunteers that come out and lend a hand. They’ll take a break and visit the canteen, or the community kitchen with its giant gourmet cinnamon rolls and then come back to it,” laughs Hovorka.

But not all the fun happens at the daylong festival on Saturday. One of the biggest attractions to mark the start of the celebration for the Sprague residents happens the night before at the Morden Sprague Road bridge. There, contestants can purchase either a small plastic riverboat or a rubber duck and then race them to the finish line at the Main Street bridge. The prize money for the winner is split between the community centre and the winning racer, but the bragging rights are the victor’s alone.

“We had to move it to the night before because it got too dangerous,” says Hovorka. “People kept falling in the river during the race! But the community centre makes some good money running it so we couldn’t let it go. It’s surprisingly good.”