THUNDER BAY - To celebrate 20 years of lighting up the cold night sky, this year the Parade of Lights got even brighter by bringing in a record number of floats, and it certainly wasn’t lost on those taking it all in from the side of the road.
“It was wonderful,” said Carmen Marion, who was watching the parade with seven-year-old Nikolas. “There were a lot of floats this year. There seemed to be a lot more than last year.”
The 20th Annual Parade of Lights lit up the night on Saturday and parade chair, Greg Stephenson, said this year there were more than 120 trucks decked out with Christmas lights, decorations, and plenty of smiling faces waving from the trailers.
“Thunder Bay is very lucky to have two distinct parades two weeks apart,” Stephenson said. “This one is different, it’s at night, it’s all about the lights, and it’s just getting out and enjoying the trucks. They do a really good job of decorating. Every year I am blown away by the amount of effort these trucks put in.”
This year saw several new elements to the parade, including a sensory friendly section and additional precautions to ensure everyone enjoying the parade remained safe.
“In the last few years we’ve had people being a little over exuberant and creeping out onto the road so we are going to encourage people to stay off the road completely,” Stephenson said. “If they are on the sidewalks, they can see the parade just fine.”
The annual parade supports four local charities, including Autism Ontario – Thunder Bay and District, George Jeffrey Children’s Centre, Special Olympics Ontario – Thunder Bay, and the Thunder Bay Therapeutic Riding Association. This year also included four parade marshals representing each of the four charities.
Being in its 20th year, organizers of the parade wanted to make it one of the biggest in terms of the fundraising goal. This year the goal was to raise $40,000, which would provide each of the charities $10,000.
However, fundraising was slow leading up to the parade night and far from its goal, though Stephenson remained positive.
“We were hoping to hit $20,000,” he said. “We are obviously far behind that. I think right now it is at $2,500. That is $2,500 we didn’t have when we started, so we are looking at it as a positive and we know the people of Thunder Bay are generous.”
Stephenson added that the truckers participating in the parade also raise money as well as local businesses.
Volunteers along the parade route were collecting donations and Stephenson would like to see the 20th year exceed last year’s goal of $25,000.
“We are hoping we can exceed our goal of last year and hopefully we can hit that goal of $40,000,” he said. “If we hit that goal, then each charity will receive $10,000. That is our magic number and we are hoping to get it.”
And given the number of people lining the parade route and the generosity of the people in Thunder Bay, it is a definite possibility.
“This is the most people I’ve seen here,” Carmen said.
