Southern Alberta Summer Games transition to community hosted Regional Events

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on April 27, 2022.

After deciding to postpone the Southern Alberta Summer Games in Raymond for the second year in a row, the Southern Alberta Recreation Association (SARA) decided to go in a slightly different direction this July.
SARA announced last week that each of the regions in southern Alberta will be hosting Regional Events throughout the month of July.
“We actually made the decision a few months ago, back when the times were a little more uncertain,” said Adam Grose, SARA’s chair.
“We kind of just wanted to have a back-up plan in place, which we’re calling the Regional Events this year,”
Grose said SARA wanted to make sure people still had something to do.
“We still wanted to keep people in southern Alberta active and give them some opportunities,” said Grose.
“So as a group when we decided to postpone these Games in Raymond, we decided that each community would try and host different events, and we would just help support them through advertising and possibly registration as well.”
Activities will include sporting demonstration and cultural events such as disc golf, pickleball, swimming and photography to name a few.
“So if another community would like to host an event they can feel free to reach out to myself and we can definitely see if it’s something that kind of fits with our mandate and kind of a grass roots sport and keeping people in southern Alberta active,” said Grose.
If you are interested host community, the sport must be inclusive for all ages.
SARA’s hope is that the Regional Event format will reach more communities through the website.
“Hopefully, they might get some participation in their event that they’re hosting,” said Grose.
A list of events can be found on SASG’s website and calendar at https://www.southernalbertasummergames.ca/. 
Deadline for a community will depend what they host for a sport.
Due to the pandemic and ongoing restrictions to reduce the spread of COVID-19, the Games have not run since the 50th anniversary in Pincher Creek in 2019 which had more than 2,500 attendees.

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