Parade of Nations

Shannon LeClair

Times Reporter

 

The 19th annual Parade of Nations took place on Feb. 26 at the Civic Centre. There were 360 guests in attendance and another 80 to 100 people working the event. 

Because it is such a popular event it practically sells out before the tickets are even printed. 

“It never used to be this big. It used to be held in the basement of the United Church,” said Claudia Littlefair, one of the organizers.  

The Parade of Nations is a fundraiser for the Lutheran Church. It began when they needed to build a new church. 

“They decided to build a new church debt free and to do that, you have to do a lot of fundraising. This dinner has been one of our best fundraisers, but we’ve done a lot of fundraising,” said Littlefair. 

“What we do is, within the church we figure out what everybody’s heritage is by going by their father’s line…and that tells you what country you’re from. Then those countries decide if they want to participate by putting a booth in the Parade of Nations.”

Usually about 17 countries are represented, and of those, about 12 set up booths to serve their countries’ traditional food. Each booth also decorates their wall space, and some of the people will dress up in their country’s traditional apparel. The evening starts with a flag parade where they are piped in by a piper. 

“The piper pipes us in and then the RCMP follow the piper, in their red serge and they carry the Canadian flags. After that all the flags from the different countries march in,” said Littlefair. 

Dinner began at 5:30 p.m. People were able to eat as much as they could, sampling each booth if they chose to do so. 

“There is so much food there, you couldn’t possibly eat it all,” said Littlefair. 

There were door prizes and raffles, and ‘The Range’ from Calgary provided the entertainment.