Organizers of the 19th Annual Christmas Parade are hoping the rare warm November weather lasts into the weekend.
“The mornings are a little chilly, but right now it’s beautiful outside,” said Leslie Savitsky, parade coordinator.
Kicking off at 10 a.m. sharp at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium and travels down Memorial Avenue to the CLE Grounds. Santa Claus himself will be the last float as usual and kids will get to meet him at the Heritage building when the parade is finished around noon.
Although the 55 floats slated for the parade are top secret, Savitsky said they’re looking forward to spectators coming out to have a peek at the imaginations and contributions of the participating organizations.
“We’re really pleased there’s still a good number of organizations that think this is an important event,” she said. “This sort of kicks off the Christmas season.”
The parade usually draws crowds of around 20,000 people and the parade is a good way to show community spirit, said Savitsky.
“It’s a lot of fun,” she said. “Everybody seems to be smiling when they’re going down the road on those floats.”
Hosted by Rotary Club, the Christmas Parade will have Shelter House volunteers and Lakehead University students will be collecting non-perishable food items from spectators for Shelter House.
Canada Post will also be picking up letters to Santa from the crowd.
“If the kids want to bring their letters to Santa, the Canada Post carriers will pick them up and make sure they get to Santa,” Savitsky said.
She wanted to add a thank you to all the people who donated items for the parade.
“It’s really great to see that the businesses come through each year to help make this a great event,” said Savitsky.
Parade organizers also want to remind parents to keep their children back near the sidewalks for safety purposes and to let the walkers handing out candy come to them.