Ukrainian Community of Lanark County

The Ukrainian Community of Lanark County is the volunteer-run non-profit that organises UAFest, the Ukrainian festival now held each September at Riverside Park in Carleton Place, Ontario. Its own About page puts it plainly: there is no paid staff, and the festival runs on community fundraising, vendor and sponsor support, and donations.

It began with a garage sale. In the spring of 2023 Carleton Place resident Gloria Bradley held one to help a Ukrainian family starting out in town. Neighbours and Ukrainians who had arrived earlier joined in, and the sale raised 2,900 CAD. The group chose to invest that money rather than spend it, and announced the first Ukrainian Fest Lanark County for 5 November 2023 at the Carleton Place Arena on Neelin Street — free to enter, with more than 500 guests expected.

The festival outgrew the arena. In 2024 it moved to Riverside Park, where a reporter for Lanark-Leeds Today wrote down a children's choir and a traditional unrolling of the Ukrainian flag that brought cheers from the crowd; the organisers count roughly 3,000 visitors that year. In 2025 the day ran from noon to 8 p.m. and more than 4,000 people came; by then Carleton Place town council had designated the festival a culturally significant event, which allowed alcohol to be served.

Every year a share of the proceeds goes to an organisation working with children affected by the war — Rotary for Kids of Heroes in 2023, Save Ukraine in 2024, and Kids of Ukraine since 2025. In October 2024 the festival's cheque of $9,395 for Save Ukraine was presented to the foundation's founder Mykola Kuleba at a formal ceremony, together with Carleton Place mayor Toby Randell. That same year the town's Community Enrichment Program and council approved $1,500 of in-kind support.

The organisation now works beyond the one day: a Ukrainian market for local vendors and makers, Ukrainian-Canadian business speed-dating, a kids' zone, workshops and a heritage exhibition, alongside year-round initiatives — UAFest Labs, UAFest.Capital, UAFest.Network, UAFest.Business, the Baba Kokum concept and Chestnut Run Ottawa. In 2026 it also holds the patronage, with the Rotary Intercountry Committee Canada-Ukraine, of the Pan-American tour of the Rushnyk of Unity — Rushnyk of Victory, a 160.5-metre embroidered cloth certified as a European record in Tallinn in May 2026. Carleton Place is its first North American stop, on 13 September.