CRAVEN, Sask. – The five-day country jamboree has wrapped up but now clean-up crews have their work cut out for them as an estimated 25,000 campers file out of the Craven grounds.
Hundreds of personal items have been left behind, including driver’s licenses, debit cards and a few cell phones.
The crew working the lost-and-found booth have been making it their mission to return phones to their owners.
“I’ll text your dad. I’ll text your mom. I’ll go through there and maybe find the person you’ve been texting the most and let them know that I have your telephone,” said Ryan Geni, a worker at the information booth. “We do have a pretty good return rate on the phones. We received over 50 telephones and there are only four left.”
Geni said more than 200 Saskatchewan driver’s licenses, plus many more from other provinces, were turned in during the festival. Items can now be claimed at the Craven Country Jamboree office in Regina.
Campers don’t just leave their valuables behind, they also leave without their trash.
“We hand out garbage bags at the front gate. We hand out garbage bags at the information booth. We have crews going out handing out garbage bags but you can’t physically make someone pick something up and put it into a bag,” said Kim Blevins, marketing director for the festival.
Hired workers will spend the next week cleaning up the grounds but overall, Blevins said this year was a success: “This has to be the smoothest festival that I’ve ever been to in my ten years working at this one,” said Blevins.
RCMP report that 96 people were arrested, plus more than 300 traffic tickets were handed out during the festival.
Despite crime being down this year, a woman remains in hospital after being hit in the face with a part of a firework on Saturday. A man from Moose Jaw has been charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
A sexual assault was also reported to police on Friday night and officers are still investigating.
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