With the inaugural Bow Valley Boot Stomp now in the books, organizer of the event, Quirk Social, handed off a hefty $1,850 donation to Cochrane Search and Rescue (CSAR) on Aug. 20.
The country music festival took place earlier this summer, and featured Aaron Goodvin, Doc Walker, Kalsey Kulyk, Drew Gregory, and Brandon Lorenzo as part of the line up. For each ticket sold from this year’s event, a portion would be donated to CSAR.
Lee Hodgers, fundraising lead for CSAR, said their group is fully funded by donations and grants.
“We have about 20 new members come on board each year,” Hodgers said. “Largely, this will be used towards uniforms and outfitting our new team members.”
CSAR also had a presence at the music festival with around 50 volunteers on-site through the entire event. Although he claims he didn’t do any boogying himself, he outlined that all the volunteers in attendance had a great time lending a hand at the event.
“We’re always happy to support community partners, we do work with the Rotary and Lions Clubs, […] when Kailey reach out to us to help, and I think that’s something we would like to continue partnering with,” he said.
Overall, he would like to give a special thanks to the organizers of this year’s event for having CSAR as a beneficiary and for bringing the event to the community.
Kailey Mitchell, CEO of Quirk Social, said the CSAR was chosen as beneficiaries for the inaugural event because of all the great work they do for the community.
“It’s great to have them as a support for the community in the event if unfortunate events happen, and they also use the Ag Society as their base,” she said.
Looking at the future, Mitchell said there are plans to change a few minor details about the event, but she anticipates that the event will be coming back to Cochrane.
“We are excited for next year, the opportunity for growth is huge, and […] it’s the first year, so it was a lot of fun,” Mitchell said. “We would like to sell more tickets and have more bodies there, and we look forward to expanding on that in the coming years, and being able to give back more to the community
