An Annual Summertime event is about to roll into 100 Mile House.
This Friday through Sunday (July 18 to 20) the heat will be turned up during “Hot July Nights”.
Event Chair, Marty Mahovolich, said this show and shine got its start back in 2008 thanks to Jack Barnett and Beau Work to encourage people to come and visit the South Cariboo.
“Probably 70 percent of the cars that take part now are not from 100 Mile. We have cars coming from Washington State, Alberta, and all over the Province that’s why now it’s a multi-day event. We are now the biggest show in Northern BC by numbers. Last year we had 427 vehicles.”
Mahovolich said part of what Hot July Nights tries to accomplish is to give local charities as much opportunity to raise money.
“In the last two years we’ve raised over $30,000 towards our local charities. This year we figure it should be close to $15,000 again. Kal Tire is doing a raffle for Canadian Mental Health Society, the Deka Lake Ratepayers Association doing a breakfast on Sunday morning, we rent the Rotary Stage, the Lions Club, Lone Butte Historical Site, and Hospice are all selling tickets.”
Sunday’s Show and Shine like it has over the last 5 years will be held on Birch Avenue.
“What we’re trying to do is support those businesses.” Mahovolich said, “ A lot of the smaller ones were struggling through the COVID years so we figured we’d bring a ton of people through here and they’ll be able to shop. We estimate we’ll bring in between 500 and 750 thousand dollars into town for the Hot July Nights weekend. Every car that comes from out of town which we usually have 3 to 4 hundred, they all come in and spend a minimum of $1,000 just them and just on the basics, accommodation, food and gas.”
Mahovolich noted that they have 110 business sponsors this year and the show takes $40,000 in cash to put on and another additional $20,000 in prizes that they get from the businesses so without them, this weekend doesn’t happen.
“The whole town is involved with Hot July Nights. The long term vision is to get the businesses to take some of the events over which we’ve already started with that. I think four of this weekend’s events are strictly run by a business and they provide the volunteers. The feedback we get from our visitors is that they are quite happy with all the things there are do around the car show.”
Mahovolich noted the reward of this weekend is that some people may come back to vacation or maybe even move here, there’s been some that had so much fun that they did.
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