Proof of COVID-19 vaccination will be required at this weekend's Show and Sale in Sarnia but the requirement is not expected to impact the overall turnout.
The biggest fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Sarnia-Lambton will take place on Saturday and Sunday at the old Teppermans location at Lambton Mall.
COVID-19 public health measures were always going to be observed, however, Big Brothers Big Sisters recently announced that vaccine certificate screening would take place since the event is technically classified as an indoor festival, not a retail event.
"We were under the impression that we were not going to need to check vaccine passports and we received information from Lambton Public Health on [November 5] that we were going to have to," said Executive Director Kaylen Burgess. "We quickly went to our social media to let the public know."
Big Brother Big Sisters posted a letter this week to further explain its decision, which was "not made lightly".
If the organization chose to not require proof of vaccination, indoor capacity would have been limited to 50 per cent of the maximum occupancy load, which would only allow for 77 shoppers at a time.
"We cannot justify running an event of this capacity, that we rely so heavily on to raise money for our agency if we can only let in 77 shoppers at a time," read a letter posted to Facebook. "By not opening this event up to full capacity, we would be letting down our 75 vendors who have put a tremendous amount of work into preparing for this event."
Burgess said the announcement wasn't taken well by some but ultimately, it's not expected to hinder the amount of shoppers they see this weekend.
"People are used to doing this now. It's not what we wanted. We wanted to welcome everyone back but we had to do what's best," she said. "We looked at numbers and this is what made the most sense for us at this event."
Due to the venue's fire code, Burgess said they're allowed to have 394 shoppers in at a time.
Meantime, organizers and volunteers are busy preparing the location for this weekend's long-awaited event.
"We're excited to have this event back. It is our biggest fundraiser, it raises over $60,000 for our programming here," said Burgess. "We hope everyone can come out and support it this weekend and we're looking forward to a great show."
The Show and Sale will be held on Saturday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., and from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Sunday.
