The founder and former director of Artwalk is trying to set the record straight after the city of Sarnia provided the board with $4,000 in relief assistance.
New Director Nathan Colquhoun says they inherited debt after a storm wreaked havoc on last year's event.
Shawn McKnight says he stepped aside from the director position last summer for health reasons, to spend more time with family and grow another local social enterprise.
He says they were only carrying a $2,600 debt on a $100,000 budget.
"Artwalk isn't a once a year event," says McKnight. "There's 16 events throughout the year, 12 First Fridays, the big Artwalk, sometimes there's winter Artwalk. There are also other fundraisers as well. We have bills coming in every month and we pay them. At any given time, there's small bills there."
McKnight says Artwalk has been self sufficient for years and in no way needed to be "bailed out" as it was a turn-key operation, organized as a true community showcase.
"We started Artwalk from nothing and build it up to be hugely successful. It's financially self-sustainable," he says. "I have to make that perfectly clear. I'm worried that my own endeavours in starting a new local social enterprise will be negatively affected with the same community contacts and sponsors and it has had a huge impact on me to make it sound that I crashed something into the ground and walked away from it. It was a huge success and it was left that way."
Over 20,000 people are expected to attend the two day event the first weekend in June.
