📵 Not the Only Parent Saying No to Phones 📚 Yann Martel at The Spire 🗓️ Events & More 🔦 August 6, 2026

Local Spotlight

📵 Delaying Smartphones Together: Becca Hurley and Unplugged Canada in Kingston

Kingston & Area Local News

🔌 New Electric, Water and Gas Meters Are Coming to Every Kingston Home
🏛️ $320,245 in Heritage Grants Is Open, and the Free Workshop Is Today
🏘️ Ninety-Two Homes Are Coming to Verona

Community Champions

🏅 One Day Left to Nominate Kingston’s Next 40 Under 40
🎗️ One Golf Tournament, One Day, $390,000 for Breast Cancer Care

New Events In and Around Kingston

📚 FEATURED EVENT: A Booker Winner and a Kingston Novelist Walk Into The Spire: Yann Martel and Iain Reid | The Spire | August 19
🎪 TK Fringe Opens With 17 Shows | Tett Centre | August 6 to 16
⚽ The Sentinels Get One Last Shot at Promotion, at Home on Sunday | CaraCo Home Field | August 9
🧭 Canada’s Only Recurring MEGA Geocaching Event Returns | Museum of Lennox & Addington | August 12 to 16
🎼 The Last Waterside Concert of the Summer | St. Paul’s, Amherst Island | August 15
🌿 Celebrate 4ever, the TIWLT Summer Party | Glen Elbe, Athens | August 15

Events Calendar

It’s gotten too long to include here in the summary! Click Events Calendar to see our list for the next few days, and beyond.

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Our sponsor Flight Cheese Shop is named after exactly what you think. Emma Sulley wanted people to be able to try small amounts of several cheeses and find what they actually like, without committing to a whole wedge of something unfamiliar. Like a beer or wine flight, but cheese.

That's the In-Flight Features box: six cheeses, small portions, with a map and descriptions that tell you what you are eating. Emma's advice is to star the ones you loved and try to put words to why the others missed. Bring those notes back and she can steer you toward something new.

Emma studied at culinary school after meeting a chef who knew everything about the cheese they were sampling, then went and studied cheese specifically at George Brown in Toronto. That is who is picking what goes in the box.

ICYMI: 35 cheeses on an ordinary Tuesday, past 90 in December, and the one Emma has brought in twice. Read the full spotlight on Best Eats Ontario East

We save this space for local businesses worth knowing. Drop us a line.

"Everyone else has one." 😠 If you are raising kids in Kingston you have heard it, and you have probably wondered whether you are the only parent holding the line.

Becca Hurley is looking for you. The Kingston elementary teacher leads the local chapter of Unplugged Canada, where more than 11,000 families across the country have pledged to delay their kids' first smartphone until at least 14, so no child ends up being the only one without one. She grew up on Wolfe Island, she has spent more than a decade in classrooms, and she has a standing invitation out to any parent who wants to talk it over.

Catch her this Saturday at the Women's Art Festival in City Park, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and tell her Kingston Spotlight sent you.

Read the full spotlight: No phones until 14, and the Kingston teacher looking for parents who agree

Someone will knock on your door about this eventually, so here is your heads up. Utilities Kingston has begun a multi-year program to replace the electric, water and gas meters across the whole community, working neighbourhood by neighbourhood with notice before crews arrive. Most installations take about half an hour, an adult has to be home to give access, and there is no fee for a standard replacement. The new meters can flag a water leak, an electrical fault or an unsafe gas condition on their own. “Upgrading our metering systems is an important step in maintaining reliable service for our customers and preparing for the future,” Ben Solc, Manager of Meter Services, said in a release from the City of Kingston.

Read the full story at: City of Kingston

If your organization has ever opened a grant application and quietly closed the tab again, today is a good day. The Kingston & Area Association of Museums, Art Galleries and Historic Sites runs a free Project Grant Writing Workshop on Zoom on Thursday, August 6, and there is $320,245.09 on the table through the 2026-27 City of Kingston Heritage Fund. Now in its fourteenth cycle, it covers both operating costs and projects, and this year’s development stream is built around youth program development and climate action. Applications close at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, September 22, and one-on-one sessions with the Grant Review Officer run every Thursday in August.

Read the full story at: Kingstonist

Ninety-two new homes are coming to Verona, and the reason it is 92 rather than five or six is buried in the plumbing. The Township of South Frontenac is building four stacked townhouse buildings on the east side of Verona Street and two apartment buildings on the west, all two storeys, an even split of one and two bedroom units at a mix of market and affordable rents. Communal water and wastewater servicing is what makes that density possible, helped by $3.2 million from the Province. Anticipated rents run $900 to $1,100 for a one bedroom and about $1,300 for a two bedroom. CAO Louise Fragnito told Kingston Daily that work should get under way in the fall, and the Verona Housing project page has the renderings.

Read the full story at: Kingston Daily

Know someone under 40 who has quietly made this place better? Nominations for Kingston Economic Development’s Kingston Young Professionals 40 Under 40 close at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, August 7. The awards are in their fourth year and have recognized 120 emerging leaders since 2023, across business, non-profit, public service and community work. Nominees have to be under 40 as of December 31 and live in Kingston or the surrounding area, an external committee does the choosing, and the winners are celebrated at the Frontenac Club on Wednesday, September 16. Self-nominations are welcome and encouraged, so if the person who came to mind is you, that counts.

Read the full story at: Kingstonist

A hundred and forty-eight golfers went out at Cataraqui Golf and Country Club on Tuesday, July 28 and came back with $390,000 for University Hospitals Kingston Foundation, up from $285,000 last year. That takes the Rose of Hope Golf Tournament past $4.3 million over nearly three decades. The money goes to breast cancer care across southeastern Ontario: the Rose of Hope Clinical Chair in Breast Health, community outreach on screening, an online booking platform to make appointments easier to get, and a reconstruction outcomes study at Kingston Health Sciences Centre.

Tournament participant Cheryl Burwash credits Rose of Hope with saving her life. She heard a speaker at the tournament talk about regular mammograms, booked one, and stayed on the screening cycle. Two years ago a mammogram found a small cancerous lump, early enough that she is cancer free today. “If I hadn’t heard that speaker talk about the importance of getting regular mammograms and staying on that screening cycle, I probably would have kept putting it off,” she said in a release from University Hospitals Kingston Foundation.

Read the full story at: Kingstonist

There is a particular sting to hearing about the market, the fundraiser or the show after it has packed up and gone home. Kingston Spotlight exists to spare you that: what is coming up around Kingston and area, plus the local good news that does not make the front page, landing in your inbox while you can still do something about it.

If this got forwarded to you, or you found us on the website, join us at kingstonspotlight.ca. Already on the list? Send this along to the neighbour who is always finding out too late.

Kingston WritersFest is not waiting for the fall festival this year. Ancient Myths, Modern Nightmares is the first event in KWF Presents, a new year-round series bringing authors to Kingston when the timing works, rather than only during festival week.

Yann Martel, whose Life of Pi won the Booker Prize and became an Oscar-winning film, will be in conversation with Iain Reid, the bestselling Kingston novelist behind I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Foe, both of which were also adapted for the screen. Martel’s Son of Nobody retells the Trojan War through the eyes of an ordinary soldier. Reid’s A New Kind of Clean, co-written with filmmaker Ellie Foumbi, follows an actress whose big break turns out to be anything but.

Tickets are on sale now through Showpass. Full event details are on the Kingston WritersFest site.

And a note for the readers who like a good comeback story: we are working on something about Kingston WritersFest itself. More soon.

Unjuried, uncurated and unboring is how the organizers describe it, and TK Fringe 2026 opens on Thursday, August 6 and runs to Sunday, August 16 in the Rehearsal Hall and TK Studio at the Tett Centre for Creativity & Learning on King Street West. Seventeen shows, presented by Theatre Kingston and The Kick & Push Festival, now in its twelfth season. You can browse all 17 shows and the festival pass, which lets you walk from one show to the next without booking each one. Every production is made independently, so content varies: anyone who wants advisories or a recommended audience age before booking can email [email protected] or [email protected].

The Kingston Sentinels thought July 10 was their last home game of the season. It was not. The men host Railway City FC of St. Thomas at CaraCo Home Field on Sunday, August 9, and a win moves the club up to OPL 2. “The way the math played out was in our favour and we get one final shot at promotion to OPL 2,” the club posted on Instagram. This was a first season in the Ontario Premier League for all three Sentinels squads, men’s, women’s and under-20, and all three finished it strong. The men were the only side to reach the playoffs, drawing 2-2 with Borough FC B in a semifinal that rain pushed into a penalty shootout. Post-secondary students and military get in free with valid ID.

Read the full story at: Kingston Daily

Over 1,500 caches are hidden across Lennox & Addington right now, and from Wednesday, August 12 to Sunday, August 16 thousands of people will come from across Canada, the United States and Europe to go and find them. The Discover L&A County MEGA is the only recurring MEGA geocaching event in Canada held in the same community every year, run out of the Museum of Lennox & Addington in Napanee, and this year’s theme is history and mystery. Admission is free, the main event is Saturday, August 15, and a community clean-up closes things out on the Sunday. “Everyone who participates is on an equal playing field. You can play for free if you have a smartphone or GPS device,” organizer Joe Tisdale told Kingstonist. You can log a Will-Attend on the cache page.

Read the full story at: Kingstonist

Four of Waterside’s five concerts this season have already happened and two of the five sold out, so consider this your notice not to leave the last one to the day. On Saturday, August 15 a clarinet trio of Eric Abramovitz, Luri Lee and Joonghun Cho play St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on Amherst Island, their first appearance at Waterside. Tickets are $50 for adults and $25 for children under 15, refreshments during the intermission included. Getting there is half the pleasure: about a half-hour west of downtown along the Loyalist Parkway, then the ferry from Millhaven. The Back Kitchen, a volunteer-led non-profit on the island, does lunches and picnics if you want to make an afternoon of it.

The Thousand Islands Watershed Land Trust throws its annual conservation fundraiser on Saturday, August 15 at its Glen Elbe learning centre near Athens, and this year’s theme is Keystone Connections. There is a sit-down dinner by chef Dan Thompson of Keystorm Pub in Brockville, with prime rib, chicken or vegetarian options, live music from River City Junction and Triola, a silent auction and an Auction for Acres, and tours of the gardens and the Climate Change Arboretum. TIWLT also announces its 2026/7 conservation projects on the day. Tickets are $90 each, or $480 for a table of six, through the TIWLT events page.

Read the full story at: Kingstonist

📚 FEATURED: Kingston WritersFest Presents: Yann Martel and Iain Reid  |  The Spire  |  August 19

🎨 Creative Connections Lab: Free Accessible Arts Workshops for Adults  |  Tett Centre, 370 King St W  |  August 6

🏅 Nominations: Kingston Young Professionals 40 Under 40  |  Kingston Economic Development  |  to August 7

💐 Cancer Warrior Floral Hug  |  Wynn Farms, Bath  |  August 7

🎸 LIVESTOCK Music & Craft Festival  |  Second Chance Ranch, 6038 County Road 2, Odessa  |  August 8

🖌️ Women’s Art Festival  |  City Park  |  August 8

🎭 The Juvenis Festival  |  Domino Theatre, 52 Church St  |  July 30 to August 8

⚽ Kingston Sentinels Promotion Match vs Railway City FC  |  CaraCo Home Field  |  August 9

🦋 International Monarch Monitoring Blitz  |  Anywhere in Kingston  |  July 31 to August 9

🐑 Kingston Sheep Dog Trials Festival  |  Grass Creek Park, 2991 Highway 2  |  August 7 to 9

🪘 FREE Indigenous Cultural Workshop With Robert Spade  |  The Spire  |  August 11

🎒 United Way KFL&A Backpack Program  |  United Way office, 417 Bagot St & Cataraqui Centre  |  July 27 to August 14

🏥 Health Adventures Camp  |  Canadian Museum of Health Care, 32 George St  |  August 10 to 14

🎪 TK Fringe 2026: 17 Unjuried Shows  |  Tett Centre, 370 King St W  |  August 6 to 16

🧭 Discover L&A County MEGA Geocaching Event  |  Museum of L&A, 97 Thomas St E, Napanee  |  August 12 to 16

📚 FEATURED: Kingston WritersFest Presents: Yann Martel and Iain Reid  |  The Spire  |  August 19

🎻 Cataraqui Chamber Music Festival 2026  |  The Spire  |  August 5 to 19

🏛️ Free Fridays at the Museum of Lennox & Addington  |  Museum of L&A, 97 Thomas St E, Napanee  |  Fridays to August 28

🐱 Groovy Cats Art Colouring Book Fundraiser for Napanee Kitten Rescue  |  Napanee  |  to September 8

Festivals, free weekly programs, museum seasons and every farmers’ market we know about, all in one place and updated with every issue. See the full Kingston Events Calendar, and bookmark it while you are there.

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