The Belleville Dragon Boat Festival will be taking place for the first time since 2019.
Hosted by the Belleville Dragon Boat Club, the festival will be taking place at Victoria Park from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Nancy Lewis says as of now, seven teams are taking part in the festival.
“We have crews coming from out of town, Stratford, Kingston, Cobourg, Brighton. We have a community crew. One of the fitness centres in town, Pure Energy Fitness, put a team in,” Lewis tells Quinte News.
Lewis says the festival being put on is for the community and not a competition with provincial or national expectations.
“What we’ve done over the years is done events like this to raise money,” Lewis explained.
“So we’ve partnered with the United Way for several years. Three Oaks Foundation, with the YMCA, and we encourage companies and businesses in town to enter crews. It’s a team building event for those crews.”
The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the annual festival.
Lewis says the club received many inquiries asking when they would return to the water.
“We started getting emails late winter to see if our festival was returning,” Lewis said.
“Stratford for instance is one of the crews that regularly comes to our events so people are pretty excited to be back on the water.”
Funds raised from the festival go towards Campfire Circle.
Money will not only be raised through registering teams to the festival, but there will also be a raffle and a silent auction taking place.
More information about the event can be found at the Belleville Dragon Boat Club’s website.
