Lights On Stratford can add another award to its growing list.
At Tuesday night’s Stratford city council meeting, Coun. Brad Beatty shared that at this year’s Communities in Bloom (CIB) National Symposium, Stratford’s annual winter festival was awarded the newly established Municipal World WinterLife Award.
“We have a wonderful community that shines all year-round,” Beatty said. “And it's wonderful when we get recognized for all the great things that we do … So I'm just wanting to present this to (Mayor Martin Ritsma) and to our community to recognize all the great work that we're doing.”
Meant as a way to extend the tourist season that coincides with the Stratford Festival, Lights On has been operating since 2020 with great success. Destination Stratford estimated that last year the festival brought a $5.3 million economic impact to the city.
Since its beginning, it has continued to win accolades. In 2020 and 2021 it won the Ontario Tourism Resiliency Award in the Innovation Winter category.
The WinterLife Award was one of many awards given out by CIB. Stratford was also placed in the “circle of excellence” category by the organization.
Ritsma added that Stratford’s continued success with CIB is due in large part to a predecessor of his.
Ted Blowes served as one of the founding members of the Canadian branch of CIB when it began in 1994 and continued to work in and out of city hall for the betterment of Stratford.
“Mayor Blowes spent a lot of his life in this chamber and in our community, making it a more beautiful place for not only our residents but our visitors alike.”
