Verona Festival mascot gathers buddies at Prince Charles PS

Jun 24, 2010

Verona Festival mascot Cameron the bog lemming and his bog buddies at PCPS

Cameron the Bog Lemming, beloved mascot of the newly renamed Verona Cattail Festival, made a special appearance at Prince Charles Public School in Verona in the hopes of searching out a number of bog buddies to join him in this year's parade. The parade will open the festival on the evening of Friday, August 6 and will proceed along Main Street to this year's new festival location at the Verona Lions Club.

Close to 40 students dressed as butterflies, beavers, lemmings, ladybugs, flowers, skunks, turtles, bees, blueberries and cattails joined Cameron on stage in the school gym. The Verona Community Association (VCA) puts on the annual three-day festival and VCA President Debbie Lingen welcomed all the bog buddies and handed out free ice cream vouchers to each. Cameron chose five lucky winners from the pack, who each received two passes for free admission to all of the scheduled events, which include musical entertainment, the ever popular cardboard duct tape boat races, the vendors' market, canteen, games and much more. Congratulations to Max Orser, Jamie McIlroy, Aurora Black, Alyssa Teal and Keisha Murphy.

Cameron's visit to the school was intended to introduce children to Cameron and the festival and to begin generating interest for what has come to be one of Verona’s major summer events and attractions. Debbie Lingen was pleased with the enthusiastic turnout at the school and said, “The new theme, the Verona Cattail Festival, is a really appropriate name and theme and it gives us a lot of opportunity to introduce some new and exciting ideas this year. It will not only be the only cattail festival in Canada, but likely all of the world. The point of today's event was to bring the festival together with the children of Verona and introduce them to this year’s parade theme ... And as you can see, they have done a really terrific job.”

The 15th Annual Verona Cattail Festival takes place the weekend of August 6, 7 and 8. Admission is $5 for the entire weekend. For more information visit www.veronafestival.com