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Christmas season officially hit Vancouver Sunday as a crowd of some 300,000 people lined in downtown streets to join the Santa Claus Parade.
With the temperature hovering around five degrees Celsius and the only snow in sight sitting atop the distant mountains, the seventh annual parade featured 60 groups marching along the 1.8-kilometer parade route.
Led off by the Vancouver Police Department motorcycle drill team, the thousands of parade participants included such groups as brass bands, both of the military and high school variety, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pipe and drums corps, firefighters, horseback riders, ballet and modern dancers, church groups, choirs, clowns bearing candies and assorted colorful floats.
Also winning warm applause from a crowd made up largely of young families was a battalion of "Bluecoats," the Olympic volunteers so prominent when the city hosted the 21st Winter Olympics earlier this year. The group, in their iconic aqua blue coats, was led by John Furlong, head of the Games organizing committee.
Ryan Nickerson, marketing director for Rogers Wireless, an arm of Rogers Communications, the producer of the parade, said the event had been getting bigger with each passing year and involved a cast of thousands of participants and volunteers.
Speaking at the "Christmas Square" where the world's largest post box stood to allow children to write letters to Santa, Nickerson said the underlying theme of the parade was Christmas carols.
"There's a lot of families out today and it's a real chance to feel the spirit of Christmas and get in the spirit of giving, make a donation to the food bank and really enjoy a festive time," he said.
The public was asked to bring either a non-perishable food item to be given to those in need, or to put money in the donation tins being carried by volunteers along the parade route.
In its first six years, the event raised 85,000 Canadian dollars (84,678 U.S. dollars) and about 30,000 kilograms of food.
This year's goal was to raise 10,000 Canadian dollars (9,962 U.S. dollars) and 5,000 kilograms of food.
Each week the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society (GVFBS) provides food-related assistance to about 25,000 people around Greater Vancouver with the number of recipients rising rapidly in recent years. According to the HungerCount 2010 survey, food banks in Canada helped 867,948 people in March, a 9.2 percent increase over the same period in 2009. < GVFBS president Cheryl Carline said as long as housing costs continued to be the number one determinant to putting people into food lines, groups like hers need to be there to help them handle their food budget.
"A lot of people think that we live in a country as wealthy as Canada, that we don't have a hunger problem. But we actually do have quite a hunger problem at home and this year there are more Canadians in food lines than in any other year. So it is really critical that we rely on the generosity of the public to help us get through."
Carline added while about 80 percent of the food bank's contributions were collected at Christmas time, people need to remember that others were hungry through the year, regardless of the season. With the economy and standard of life improving for many Chinese, she reminded people there to keep in mind those less fortunate.
"When you live in countries that have the capacity to give and people are able to share, we get a thriving economy and a good community. When we all rise up together we are able to make a lot of good things happen. So I would say all around the world help those who need your help the most and it will come back to you."
XINHUA
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