At their regular morning meeting on September 17, Hamilton AM Rotary members welcomed Heather Kanabe, Executive Director of Telling Tales children's festival. This year's festival with be the 17th and it is returning to Hendrie Park at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Burlington.
Telling Tales Mission is "to deliver outstanding literary programming for children and youth that raises awareness of the necessity of literacy in our community". The Hamilton AM club has been a funding partner from the beginning - for 16 years. Members have often volunteered at the festival in the past.
In 2024, Telling Tales featured over 120 children's authors, illustrators and performers. Along with 67 presentations at the September 21, 22 festival, there were 15 virtual and live school and community presentations. The annual festival is very popular with over 59% new attendees in 2024 and 94% indicated they would recommend Telling Tales to someone else. Along with live streamed events, there were 17 in-person EarlyON and community presentations across Hamilton in French and English.
Telling Tales enjoys a partnership with Hamilton AM Rotary's Imagine in the Park children's arts festival. At the Imagine annual June festival, Telling Tales brings authors who engage children in story telling. In return, Imagine volunteers and artists will host a children's arts workshop each day of the 2 day Telling Tales festival, October 4, 5. Hamilton AM Rotary members are currently signing up for shits at the upcoming Telling Tales festival.
Heather's presentation included an excellent slide show of results from 2024 and future plans for the festival. Click here to view the presentation.
