Wednesday 27 November 2013

All Decked Out for Christmas


Downtown merchants are pulling out all the stops to make their shopping area the place to be this holiday season.

Hay rides, old-fashioned carolers, bright lights and seasonal promotions combine with historical charm to create a hard-to-resist festive mood in the weeks leading up to Christmas.



“We encourage everyone to bring the family downtown to enjoy a more relaxing, nostalgic way of holiday shopping,” says Ted Stilson, executive director of the Downtown Lethbridge BRZ.

“You can park the car and spend the day exploring the many merchants downtown — we have such a great variety of retailers,” he says. “Then you can cap it off with a visit to one our fantastic restaurants, coffee shops or pubs.” 

The downtown core has an abundance of restaurants with a variety of cuisines from around the globe, as well as several fast food restaurants and coffee shops.

Many of the cultural attractions, including the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Galt Museum, Casa, Bowman Arts Centre, Lethbridge Public Library, and Trianon Gallery, are also offering unique seasonal promotions.

The fun doesn’t have to stop when the sun goes down. Stilson says the number of venues offering live music in the downtown core has also increased in the recent years, giving rise to a more vibrant and eclectic music scene.

Thursday 7 November 2013

Grandmother to Grandmother Campaign

An international exhibit of 40 art works currently touring 15 cities in western Canada is coming to Lethbridge on Saturday as part of a local fundraising event in support of African grandmothers.

The event is being organized by the Harambee Grandmas, which is the Lethbridge chapter of the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign. This campaign was launched in 2006 in response to the emerging crisis faced by African grandmothers as they struggled to care for millions of children orphaned by AIDS.


Across Canada, there are about 250 grandmother groups that have raised $19 million since 2006. In Alberta, $1.7 million has been raised, with the Lethbridge group contributing more than $100,000.

“Our group name — Harambee — means ‘working together to ease the burden’ in Swahili,” says Judy Scott of the Harambee Grandmas.