{"id":26728,"date":"2020-06-11T23:28:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T03:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26728"},"modified":"2020-06-18T19:13:49","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T23:13:49","slug":"canadas-birthday-town-goes-virtual-for-red-and-white-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/canadas-birthday-town-goes-virtual-for-red-and-white-celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Birthday Town goes virtual for red-and-white celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aurora is not letting restrictions surrounding COVID-19\ntarnish its reputation as Canada\u2019s Birthday Town. Instead, Aurora will be\ndefending the crown in a virtual way this Canada Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While favourite Canada Day activities like the Yonge\nStreet parade, day-long festivities and fireworks at Lambert Willson Park are\nnow fully on ice until the summer of 2021, plans are shaping up for a week-long\nvirtual Canada Day celebration that looks back at our past, celebrates our\npresent and looks forward to the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada Day Celebrations will kick off later this month\nwith the launch of a Canada Pride window and front lawn decorating contest,\nencouraging people to go all out in red and white. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough social media, we want to compile a \u2018flipping\nparade\u2019 where you can flip through these photos and see all these houses and\ndecorated windows,\u201d says Shelley Ware, Special Events Coordinator for the Town\nof Aurora. \u201cWe want to have this parade experience ready by June 30 so people\ncan decorate their homes in the one-to-two weeks prior to that, building up the\nexcitement leading to those activities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As organizers compile the \u201cflipping parade\u201d, curators and\nstaff at the Aurora Museum and Archives will also launch a video illustrating\nhow Aurora earned the moniker of \u201cCanada\u2019s Birthday Town\u201d in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people see the photos and logos, but they don\u2019t\nknow the nuts and bolts as to how it came to be,\u201d says Ms. Ware. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping\nfor that to be a very entertaining piece. This year is also the 40th<\/sup>\nanniversary of O Canada becoming our National Anthem so we want to have a\nlittle bit of fun with this by involving our members of Council and hopefully\nseeing what their musical talents might be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally, Canada Day festivities kick off with Dance\nin the Park, a party organized by the Rotary Club of Aurora at Town Park, on\nJune 30. While the dance is not happening this year, the date will be the\nspringboard to further online celebrations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are moving forward with a virtual fireworks\nexperience as well as some programming such as fire juggling and an aerialist\nperformance and other entertaining features,\u201d says Ms. Ware. \u201cWe\u2019re going to\nhave a really strong online presence for interactive activities, which we hope\nwill be very actively engaged by the community for the entire week of Canada\nDay, not just on the one day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn Canada Day Morning, we will be starting with a\ngreeting by the Mayor and that is when we will have the Museum\u2019s video of our\nhistory. We know that Ottawa is going to be doing a noontime broadcast between\n12 and 1 p.m., so we will be staying quiet on our social media channels during\nthat time and then in the afternoon we will be having a huge variety of\nactivities voted onto our website, which will be designed by Aurora as well as\nthe Federal Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of these activities will be a DIY Learn How To\nPaint. For the foodies, there will be Canadian recipes they can try to work\nthrough. There will be activities based on the symbolism and history of Canada.\nOur team has come up with 13 customized crossword puzzles, one for every single\nprovince and territory, which is quite educational. Not just your ordinary\ncolouring sheets, but we\u2019ve made one customed to each Province and Territory\nwith their historical landmarks, facts and claims to fame. We have pulled\ntogether a montage of experiences which come with a relaxed timeline that\nenables families to tune in when they choose to and also, when they\u2019re not,\nthere\u2019s lots of physical activity and wellness activities they can actually go\nout and be active with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are unusual circumstances, to be sure, and the\nresponse from the Town in making sure the show does go on is unusual as well,\nbut Ms. Ware says she and her team are enjoying rising to the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a lot of effort and passion in trying to put\ntogether not just online activities but meaningful online activities,\u201d she\nsays. \u201cThey know that families have had lots of screen time recently, so we\nwanted to make sure that what we load up is meaningful, interesting and that\neverybody, regardless of age, learns something about Canada, because it is our\nnational holiday to celebrate, but it is also our holiday to be proud and learn\nabout ourselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHopefully through some of these online experiences,\npeople will learn, be engaged, and hopefully have fun with what we have\nplanned.  Virtual experiences, obviously,\nare limited in what you can and cannot do and, of course, everything has been\nquick timelines to be able to pull things together \u2013 but it is not just pulling\nthings together; we want it to be meaningful, which has been the number one\nobjective all along.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Aurora\u2019s virtual Canada Day Celebrations, visit aurora.ca\/canadaday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora is not letting restrictions surrounding COVID-19 tarnish its reputation as Canada\u2019s Birthday Town. Instead, Aurora will be defending the crown in a virtual way this Canada Day. While favourite Canada Day activities like the Yonge Street parade, day-long festivities and fireworks at Lambert Willson Park are now fully on ice until the summer of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6X6","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 19:25:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}