The Municipality of Russell organized Local Flavours to encourage residents to shop more locally within the neighbourhood. From the left, Vanessa Carrière, member of the Department of Economic Development and Marie-Claire Ivanski, president of Friends for Life.      Glover photo

Kory Glover
Villager Staff
EMBRUN – Local businesses and vendors gave residents of Embrun a little taste of what they had to offer Sat., Oct. 13 at the annual Local Flavours to help raise money for the Friends for Life charity for the Breast Cancer Association.

The amount raised from the event was not available at Press time.

Attendance at last year’s event was much higher than expected, raising over $12,000 for local charity, and there was a lot of hope that this year’s participation was going to match or surpass last year’s numbers.

“The attendance is excellent, we’re so very pleased and I think we’re going to be sold out, we had over 300 tickets or so sold out before the event and there’s probably about 100 left, but as people are coming in without a ticket, we’re going to be sold out by the end of the night,” said Marie-Claire Ivanski, president of Friends for Life. “This year we’re having a survivor theme to celebrate the survivors of breast cancer, compared to last year, I have a hard time to say because last year was dedicated to my other cause, Victoria’s Quilts. Both causes I hold very near and dear to my heart, so to ask for me to choose one of my children is basically impossible. So in comparing, it’s hard to say but we’re well attended tonight.”

The Department of Economic Development of the Municipality of Russell came up with the idea of Local Flavours to simply support the local businesses in area to encourage local shopping.

“The Department of Economic Development decided that we really wanted to support our local businesses, gather everyone in the community to share what the local businesses had to offer,” said Vanessa Carrière, member of the Department of Economic Development. “Residents can come in and purchase tickets and come to taste local beer, wine and food.”