by Garrett Fodor
The Canadian Transportation Museum & Heritage Village (CTMHV) hosted an evening of fun to celebrate the New Year.
On December 31, the hall at CTMHV was packed to near capacity for its 15th annual New Year’s Eve Party. The event agenda included a beef and ham dinner, followed by dancing and entertainment with DJ Chuck Reynolds.
Emily Atkinson is the Media and Event Coordinator for CTMHV. She described this year’s event as successful and believes it was built off a successful campaign in 2017.
“This year has been a really good one for us, we are almost at capacity and had people walking in and purchasing tickets as well,” Atkinson said. “Last year, the crowd did not really begin to thin out until about 12:30 a.m., with everyone celebrating with us. I’m excited at how enthusiastic everyone seems and we have so many people returning to the dinner from years past.”
The dinner is one of the largest fundraisers for the Museum’s Children’s Education Program. This hands-on learning program employs a full-time teacher at the Museum, who provides the thousands of students who visit annually with a unique history lesson.
In addition to the New Year’s Eve Party being a fundraiser for the Children’s Education program, so is the Museum’s annual car raffle. The winner, ticket number #0029, was drawn at 9 p.m. during the event. The tickets were sold throughout the year. The 2018 car raffle prize was a 1965 Mercury Park Lane with nearly 4000 tickets sold for the car.
The 2019 edition of the car raffle will be for a 1983 cherry red Ford Mustang convertible, with just 93,000 kilometers on the dial. The car is now on display in the CTMHV lobby and tickets will go on sale shortly.