Stonecrest’s sweet Summer Send-off

KINBURN – The annual Stonecrest Summer Send-off has grown in to a huge event for Stonecrest Elementary School taking months to organize.

The results are plain to see as more than 600 students and their parents and guardians run wild in the schoolyard enjoying an evening jam-packed with fun and entertainment for all ages, while raising a pretty chunk of change for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) to boot.

The annual event is a chance for students to have one great big party at the school before summer holidays, and organizers pull out all the stops. This year, there were two huge inflatables, mini-tractors, the fire department with their fire trucks, Ms. Twisty, live music from Bill Wilson and friends, games all over the place, the CHEO Bear, Mr. Fox and Sparky the Fire Dog, Maple the Cow, the West Carleton 4-H Square Dancing Club, an ice cream sundae table, Beavertails, vendors all over the place, and surely we’re missing something.

“It’s our biggest event,” lead organizer Shannon Cuddihey told West Carleton Online yesterday (June 18). “It takes a few months to organize. This year was our biggest version. It was awesome.”

The school family raised $1,000 for CHEO in the lead-up to the event, something to encourage the CHEO Bear to drop by Stonecrest.

“So, that was really cool to have the bear, Mr. Fox and Sparky,” Cuddihey said.

She said the several agricultural elements at the send-off which also included a fake cow kids could milk and some of the giant tractors needed for crop production for students to check out.

“That is really important for us to have that,” Cuddihey said. “Because in our school a lot of our students are still in the farming community.”

Cuddihey has been a member of the school’s parent council for the last nine years, a volunteer coordinator for the same time, and an administrative assistant at the school.

“I love doing stuff like this for the kids,” she said. “I see them every day and they’re engaged in the lead-up. It’s so fun to see them have something to look forward to and remember.”

Cuddihey says there are 670 students at Stonecrest and almost every one of them came out to the send-off. It takes a lot of food to keep the party going.

“We sold out of Beavertails in an hour and a half,” Cuddihey said. “That was about 250 Beavertails. There were 700 hamburgers and 600 hot dogs.”

After a short COVID break, the event has been growing each year for the last four or five years.

“I don’t even know if we have an idea of how long it’s been going,” Cuddihey said. “We keep trying to make it bigger and better each year. It’s awesome to see the students having so much fun. Walking around, seeing the kids, is just so awesome to see that they’re so happy. And so are the parents.”

Cuddihey says the event would be impossible to pull off without a team of volunteers to help put it together including Jenna Ross.

“There’s a few people that help that I couldn’t do it without them,” Cuddihey said. “And just have the parents come out to support it means so much to us. It’s the best.”