Southern Alberta Summer Games on track as call for community involvement goes out

By Cal Braid
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Taber will be hosting the 2025 Southern Alberta Summer Games (SASG) and there’s plenty to do in preparation for the event. The Games will take place from July 2 to 5 and feature both individual and team sporting events in and around Taber. Roughly 2,000 athletes and coaches are expected to compete.

  The Town has hosted the Games six times previously, and in the summer of 2024 when discussing a potential seventh, town council was decidedly split on the decision to submit a bid for 2025. When Taber hosted in 2018, the expenditures totaled approximately $110,000 including donations and sponsors. Last summer, when the event had not yet been budgeted for, the Town could foresee the cost rising as high as $230,000 between the combined cost of hosting and making facility upgrades.

  After Coaldale hosted the 2024 SASG, its organizers reported that 180 local volunteers had pulled off the event, but recommended that 200 to 250 would have been ideal. Between the cost, facility upgrades, staffing, and ‘drafting volunteers,’ Taber council was reluctant to approve a bid and was deadlocked in discussion with three councillors for it and three against it.

  Mayor Prokop was the tiebreaker in the ensuing 4-3 vote after saying, “I’m very much in favour of supporting the motion. I don’t think you can ever showcase your community enough if you get a chance to do that, particularly when it’s been on hold for five years.”

  Now the Games are a go and five weeks away. Preparations are in full swing, said Kory Ostrup, assistant manager of recreation.

  “We are working on finding sport chairs at the moment. Once we have all of those in place, they will be working on the rules, regulations, finding volunteers, and creating schedules. Without the support of our community, we will not be able to run all the events. We will be reaching out to businesses in the town and the MD for sponsorship. We are open to cash, in-kind donations and would be willing to meet with businesses to discuss what other options may be available,” she said.

  Ostrup confirmed that the Town has a council-approved budget of $115,000 for the Games. The initial concerns about the financial implications of holding a large-scale event may prove to be unfounded if all goes according to plan.

  Amy Allred, economic development manager, said, “For the return on investment, we can’t precisely say yet, but events like these bring thousands (of people) to our community for multiple days, increasing traffic to our local businesses, so we are confident that the SASG will be the same.”

  “We can generally estimate events like these bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in economic support to our community,” Allred said. “Since we will be having the Taber 120th Concert on June 30, followed by Canada Day and then jumping straight into the SASG on July 2, we’re encouraging visitors to spend that whole week enjoying Taber and all it has to offer, so we expect our community and all businesses to be very busy that week.”

  She said her department plans to conduct an economic impact study that will examine the ROI to the community from the events, but those numbers won’t be available until later.

  In 2018 when Taber hosted the Games, 2,241 athletes participated. In 2024, the SASG in Coaldale brought in 1,783 athletes after the event was on hiatus for four years. The expectation is that this year’s event will draw about 2,000 athletes.

  Ostrup said that anyone who wants to get involved can contact recreation@taber.ca. Community involvement and volunteerism may be the deciding factor for success as the Games approach and play out.