Snow, wind and icy roads were not enough to stop a small crowd from celebrating Earth Day on April 22 hosted by Klaglahachie at the Ponoka United Church.
Ben Wilson, Laura Laycock and Lauren Gust kicked off the evening with great entertainment.
Wilson was anxious but was more than satisfied with the results.
“We were nervous at first because we couldn’t get together at all before the event but it went really well and we were excited about it,” said Wilson. “Gust and Laycock were both just amazing.”
Wilson had fun performing and was pleased with the amount of people that came.
“It was really awesome, even with the bad weather we had a good turnout,” said Wilson.
The music featured songs written by Wilson and Laycock as well as songs that brought a message about the environment.
Wilson enjoys performing in front of a local audience and likes the familiarity of a smaller crowd.
“I really like playing my own music and sharing myself with other people,” he said. “There’s an intimacy there and you see people really engaged in the music and really listening. There’s a great connection with the audience.”
After the music everyone stayed to watch a video and participate in an environmental discussion.
“The video was great, everyone was on the edge of their seats and it sparked a lot of interesting conversation,” said Wilson.
The quality of the conversation was attributed to the wide age range of the group which allowed for a variety of ideas.
“It was great to see people of all ages come out to this,” said Wilson. “A lot of people had really good ideas and it was fun to hear from the older people about the way things used to be.”
Richard McKelvie, a member of Klaglahachie gave a valuable presentation on geothermal energy and enlightened the audience on geothermal energy in other parts of the world.
“It was awesome to know that there’s something out there that is a better alternative for energy that is efficient and causes less, if any, greenhouse gases,” said Wilson. “The whole evening went over really well and we’ll try and do it again next year.”