City of Kamloops Annual Report 2010

Bloom stays brilliantthroughout the seasonsA combination of “bests” in the Communitiesin Bloom national competition earnedKamloops the prestigious Best BloomingCommunity designation in 2010. The Cityof Kamloops, a participant in the Circle ofExcellence category in the “national edition”of the competition, received a Five-Bloomrating and special mentions for the CommunityGardens Expansion Program, whichjudges noted showed a significant commitmentto local food production. Kamloopsalso received the Outstanding AchievementAward for Urban Forestry, and a top rating inthe Winter Lights competition with a specialmention for the Spirit of Christmas with theKamloops Heritage Railway. Combined, theseawards showcased Kamloops as the best inthe country, not only in terms of beauty, butin how residents of Kamloops work togetherto bring about winning results.Kamloops earns GamesTown medalIt took spirit, pride and a big doseof combined community energy forKamloops to earn a bronze medal and achance to share the podium with the topGamesTown communities from acrossthe province. Gamestown, a healthylivingfocused initiative leading up tothe 2010 Games, was launched to getBritish Columbians excited about hostingthe Olympics. As the bronze winner,Kamloops earned a $25,000 cash awardtoward a sport or healthy living facilityimprovement, two pairs of tickets to the2010 Olympic Winter Games and one pairof tickets to the 2010 Paralympic WinterGames. Princeton and Dawson Creek werenamed gold and silver medal winners,respectively.Meanwhile thousands of people tookadvantage of the GamesTown 2010 WinterOlympic/Paralympic Games contest andentered their names in hopes of winninga chance to attend the games. Five luckyresidents were drawn in January and eachreceived a pair of tickets to an Olympic orParalympic event.City of Kamloops Annual Report 2010 7