We’re not just a candy store, really.
Sure from the surface level it looks like a candy store, but we have so much more to offer, and pride ourselves as the store that has way more than meets the eye.
We had four major events this past year; all exceeding expectations and setting the bar even higher for 2015. So with that being said, let us take a look back on the year that was.
The first big event was the ‘Weekend of Love’ from February 14-17th, featuring the talents of Rufus, Nikki W., DJ Flash, DLF and Sarah Smith. The 4 day concert was put in place to raise awareness for two special causes.
One of them being the Cambridge Early Years Family Centre, a place where young families can partake in various programs designed to help and develop children aged 0-6 years-old. Parents could share parenting tips amongst each other and get help from those at the facility. The weekend of love was set up for donations and to raise awareness that this option is available for new parents. The building is located at 149 Ainslie st. in Cambridge. For more information about them, and what they can offer check out their website at www.cfeyc.ca
The other major focal point of the event was to help find a stem-cell match for Katie Star Hodgkinson, a little four-year-old girl who needed to find a match in order to survive acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Our goal at the store was to not only find a match, but to make #katiestar trend on twitter in Canada.
We are extremely happy to report that a match was found and that she’s recovering well. Read the article from The Cambridge Times here
Rufus started the entertainment off with his hip-hop assisted by DJ Flash from 91.5 the Beats mix at 6. They performed together and hosted the dance party that followed. The following day Nikki W. and Sarah Smith took the stage with amazing original pieces as well as some awesome covers of classic songs. The event had people packed in, with the sounds blasting through the store and onto the street. The guys at 4GPA we’re a big help in setting up the speakers and lights to make it a rock show for the ages. DLF ended the weekend of love making sure everyone left on a high note.
Check out one of the Sarah Smith performances here.
Flash forward a few months now to June, where we went looking for the next big hip-hop star right here in Cambridge. With the launch of the hip-hop candy festival. Again the event had a deeper meaning with Argus residence being at the forefront of this event. Argus residence is a homeless shelter for youth in the Cambridge area. Located not too far away from the Candy Funhouse, we wanted this event to be special and help out any way we could in hopes of benefitting the shelter. For more information on Argus check out their website at www.argusresidence.com
Hip-Hop Candy Fest had eight finalists ranging in age from 12-16. They performed original songs at Central Park in front of a modest crowd on a beautiful summer day. The winners were Carlie and Griffon, who walked away with $250, one thousand dollars of recording time with Brixston music, and a huge candy basket. One of the highlights was this song right here performed by Shana and the one-and-only Willy Wonka! A wonderful rendition of ‘lose yourself’ originally done by Eminem. This year we plan on making it even better with more musical acts and bigger prizes. Keep checking our various social media outlets as more details come out!
In August we launched a social media campaign to promote the store with the “candy selfie” contest. We left it to the public to vote on the winner, the winner would receive a gift basket valued at $200. Eventually Brooklyn was declared the winner winning by a significant margin.
As the summer heat reached its peak, we needed a way to cool down for a good cause. Introducing Kylie’s lemonade stand!
Four-year-old Kylie Hass set up a lemonade stand right outside our front doors on August 13th, raising donations for the Ronald McDonald House in Hamilton. Selling more than 290 cups of lemonade and raising $3,100. An amazing result for a little girl who just a few months prior was going through chemotherapy for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
The who's who of Cambridge came out to help support Kylie and Ronald McDonald House, even mayor Doug Craig stopped by for a drink and a small chat with Brooke (Kylie’s mother.) Ridgehill Ford donated $1,000 themselves to help the cause. The event was such a success that we are hoping to make it an annual thing. That being said, let’s start planning and make sure you spread the word as the event gets close to smash the record we did last year!
The last major event this year was the launch of our most successful viral campaign to date. The #Cbridgeclash was announced in December, having all three downtown cores of Cambridge participate in a friendly competition to raise the most food for the Cambridge self-help food bank.
We had a lot of help in this campaign, from Dave FM for constantly keeping us in their forefront during their morning show, to the downtown stores willing to put up posters to help promote the campaign. Countless people within the community donated what they could to help out the less fortunate.
We hosted the kick off party for the #Cbridgeclash, which also acted as our own Christmas party, with the big jolly guy Santa making an appearance as well as Sweet Willy Wonka.
Our party kicked off with a reading by local poet/ author Barb Day. She had just released a young-readers book called ‘Zanzibar’, you can read our interview with her here.
As Santa continued to hand out candy and collect donations for the food drive, the anticipation for the debut of the super group, the ‘Candy Men’ was mounting.
The Candy men are a collection of local musicians who played together for the very first time rocking out to classic rock tunes and a few Christmas songs as well. They were made up of musicians; Mike Meacher (lead vocals/guitar), Fyl Bennett (bass), Paul Bulla (keys), Mark Manfini (guitar/vocals), CandyWOmen Marcia Dwyer-Aultman (back up vocals), and the man for finding all these amazing drummer (and occasional singer) Billy Thompson.
Check out some of their performances here:
They performed to a packed house yet again, the most traffic we’ve had in the store for one specific event. Robin Benedict closed out the show with a few cover songs and original pieces of her own. Thanks again to 4GPA for helping with the sound and audio.
The #Cbridgeclash ended only a week ago, raising an astonishing 6,938 lbs for the food bank. Breaking down the numbers showed that Galt raised 2,206 lbs, Hespeler with 1,254 and Preston with 3,478 respectfully. Next year we want to raise even more and are planning to launch the #Cbridgeclash earlier on with more local stores and businesses hopping onboard.
This year has been amazing in so many ways, excelling expectations. With the bars now set to improve on, you can count on the Candy Funhouse to offer even more sweet times for 2015.
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