Picnic offers bear-y good time

Record numbers turned out for last Thursday’s LINK Karratha Teddy Bears’ Picnic, a free annual community event that aims to connect young children and their families with local information services.

A wealth of community organisations attended this year’s event, including volunteer fire and rescue services, Pilbara Regiment, Lions Club, St John’s Ambulance, Pilbara Population Health and playgroups.

LINK Karratha has been hosting the local event for more than 16 years and parenting information project co-ordinator Francesca Quayle said this one had been a big success.

“Yesterday’s event was actually one of our best. We were inundated,” she said.

“Normally, we have about 1200 people. We reckon we definitely topped that.”

Each child received a teddy bear and a show bag packed by SMYL students.

The crowd was kept entertained with a teddy-inspired show put on by St Luke’s Centre of Artistic Development students, children’s songs performed by local musician James Cutfield and face painting from the Dessert Princess, Flutterby the Fairy and Wonder Woman.