PHOTOS: Ice Cream Festival Reappears In Amherstburg

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After disappearing for a short time, the Amherstburg Ice Cream Festival reappeared in the downtown Amherstburg area bringing out hundreds of residents for a cool treat.

Kim Hamilton took over the organization of the festival this year. She participated as a vendor two years ago and inquired last year why it wasn’t happening again.

“They told me the gentlemen who organized it was no longer organizing it so I thought ‘oh,’” said Hamilton. “We really wanted to kind of help the community and there’s not much to do out this way. They have the big thing in Windsor but as a parent I don’t like to bring my kids down there, it’s just too busy. So we thought what better to do with kids than an ice cream festival.”

Hamilton’s instincts seemed to pay off. She made the entire day all about children with bouncy castles, face painting, balloon animals and of course ice cream. Being located in Toddy Jones Park also gave the festival an extra leg-up, allowing attendees to enjoy the splash pad and playground included in the park. Even residents from Windsor such as Jodi Jones came to Amherstburg to enjoy the festivities.

“We thought it would be something different to do and interesting things to see. We’ve gone through Fort Malden and went through the barracks, and then they got some ice cream,” said Jones. “They are enjoying themselves … there’s lots of things to see and do.”

The Amherstburg Farmer’s Market is also a new addition to the Ice Cream Festival this year. It has been at the Little White Church in Malden for five years and this year they decided to expand their services by adding a new location during the week at Toddy Jones Park in the middle of Amherstburg. Since it fell on the same day as the Ice Cream Festival, they were able to be included in the festivities.

“They asked us to come early because that’s when the festivities started and it seems like people are kind of interested,” said Leslie Belsillie, Farmer for the Fruit Wagon with the Farmer’s Market. “We hope it kind of spreads the word about the Farmer’s Market because it’s new this year for this location.”

Overall, Hamilton said Fort Malden is great but is geared towards and older child crowd. She said she wanted this to be fun for all children because “if the kids are having fun, mom and dad are having fun” and that’s always the goal.