Fun Faith Journey for Easter

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

Eleven children and seven adults seemed excited to refresh their knowledge and learn additional facts at the Easter Egg Hunt and Potluck Supper, a Maundy Thursday Community event at Vegreville United Church on April 17.

Participants follow Jesus’ steps from Holy Week to Easter.

Coordinator Holly Cependa explained that nine stations represented a snippet of the passion story. The participants had to look at the poster and try to predict what the station would be about. Then they listened to a storyline, chatted about what it meant, and had an activity to do that was related to it. For example, the storyline was ‘Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem, people were cheering, and the authorities were jealous.’ The discussion was about ‘why did he choose a donkey? Why were the people excited to see him? Why were the authorities jealous?’ The activity was pin the tail on the donkey. Then they were challenged to do a conga line to the next station. As they left the station, they all received a sweet treat for their bag.

She went on to say that the goal was to remind everyone of the reason we celebrate Easter. It’s not about candy!

“We also wanted to open the event up to the entire community by inviting them all to participate in the potluck, and if they wanted, they were welcome to stay for the service afterwards.

The organizers were all pleased with the event, the number of attendees for the egg hunt, those who helped make the potluck banquet, and those who stayed for the service.

The ‘Spirit’ is alive and moving about in our community,” Cependa added.

Preparing for Flower Beautification

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

People love growing flowers in Vegreville! Before the Vegreville Garden Club’s regular meeting on March 31 at Vegreville Agricultural Society Boardroom, 37 attendees listened to Guest Speaker Sarah Laudin from Sunshine Blooms Farm near Andrew, talk about cultivating flowers.

Sarah farms 3,200 acres of crop land and one acre of flowers with her husband and two little sons. Laudin’s family farm specializes in dahlias, sunflowers, and gladiolus. They grow all their plants outdoors and have a few raised beds in their front yard and two small greenhouses where they start their seeding.

The main crop on their farm is dahlias, where they grew over 2,600 plants in 2024.

They plant sunflowers during the long weekend in May and will usually plant them until July 1. They grow eight varieties and 800 plants of gladiolus, which are treated like annual plants on their farm, and they repurpose their bulbs every year.

Laudin explained that they grow 85 percent of their dahlias from tubers, and the others are grown from cuttings they propagate themselves.

Laudin recommended planting these flowers in 150-foot rows spaced one foot apart. “We grow in single rows with landscape fabric between the hemp mulch around the plants for weed control.

When growing dahlias, tubers can be pre-sprouted by simply warming them up.

Dahlias are sensitive to cold temperatures and should not be planted until after your last frost date.

It is best to plant dahlias four or five inches deep into well-worked soil about two feet apart. You can add bone meal or supplements at planting, as dahlias are heavy feeders.

Dahlia tubers are prone to rotting, so they should not be watered until sprouts are seen above the ground.

Attendees seemed excited to learn about growing flowers.

Pitch out the main stem when the plants reach about eight to twelve inches tall or have four to five sets of leaves. This encourages branching and significantly increases the number of blooms.

“We dig our dahlias every fall after hard frost and before the ground freezes. Once we dig our dahlias, we try to wash, divide, label, and store them within 48 hours. We store our tubers in coarse vermiculite and store them in clean totes,” Laudin said.

Club President Diana Ashton, said they discussed upcoming events like the Ground-Up Market in May, where they will be hosting the guest speaker and stressed the importance of volunteering to make it and all events successful.

Kindness is King

Rosanne Fortier - News Correspondent

Children learned how to express kindness at the Stay and Play program at Kalyna Family Resource Network-Vegreville and Area on April 11.

Spokes programmer Cheryl Sorensen said there were 17 participants. The theme was Spring and Kindness. The activities available were set up with materials to write little notes about caring and friendship. There was also a craft project where kids could colour spring bugs. They also had a story read to them. “This helps kids because it teaches them about saying kind words to others and learn when it is appropriate in their lives to use kind words.”