The eighth annual Dickens Village Festival proved to be a record breaker, according to numbers that have been complied over the past week.
Visitors alone topped the numbers seen in 2008 and 2009.
Signing the guest book at Fezziwig's Pub, 324 people visited on the first day of Dickens, and an additional 510 visited the following day, for a grand total of 834 visitors.
This is compared to 753 visitors in 2009 and 755 visitors in 2008.
Cornerstone Family and Youth also declared the weekend a victory for their fundraising efforts.
"We brought in about $2,200 from the auctions we held, and another $500 from the cookie sale," said CFY project co-ordinator Jen Sedor. "Things were really great, and I'm quite happy with the outcome."
On top of this, it was a record year for the street urchins as well.
These brave children, who roam the streets, dressed as beggars, raising money for charity, brought in $1,397 from the pockets of visitors on the streets, an amount far above what had been seen in previous years.
In terms of visitors alone, the numbers were extremely heartening for the festival committee, and when considering that the visitors represented a total of 67 other communities, from all over Canada, the United States, and further abroad, it seems the word of the Dickens festival has spread quite far.
The festival committee is scheduled to have their final 'de-brief' meeting on Thursday, Dec. 16, following which more information will be released.
