The community was clearly hungry for an event like the Taste of Olds.
Jennifer Hainsworth, Instructor in the Business Faculty at Olds College of Agriculture and Technology, says it was a food and drink expo put on by students in her second year business course as part of their project management class.
She points out that they started out looking to have at least 16 vendors set up at the Olds College Alumni Centre and last Thursday evening they wound up with 22. She says “we were anticipating about 500 attendees and we ended up with closer to the 1,500 mark. So three times as much in terms of the expected attendance which was fantastic to see the community support for the program and for the students. Just as a great getaway for the night to go and enjoy some local food and beverages and some live local musicians.”
She notes there are plenty of thanks to go around. Hainsworth says “just wanted to put a great big thank you out to the community, also for The GOAT and The Ranch for promoting our event. For my students, first and foremost for all of their hard work and then the support that I also received from Olds College.”
Hainsworth highlights the fact that they will keep their social media pages up and running and they will absolutely be doing the Taste of Olds again. She says “the community coming together was phenomenal. I walked down, well tried to walk – it was, you know, standing room only at times – and you’d see people saying ‘oh it is so good to see you, I haven’t seen you in such a long time’ and so it was really to where that relationship building as well as people going to vendors and being like ‘I didn’t even know you existed within the community’ so also that visibility for our local businesses as well. But yes, I do believe there is a want for it to continue. Like I said it has been mentioned to me multiple times, even in just the short few hours since the event, at the event and even we had a lot of positive comments from vendors as well that ‘if you ever do this again, I want to be your first call’, ha.”
Listen to 96.5 The Ranch’s conversation with Jennifer Hainsworth.
Taste of Olds at the Olds College Alumni Centre on April 4, 2025. (Cory Noel, mymountainviewnow.com)
