{"id":37494,"date":"2026-01-15T13:57:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:57:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=37494"},"modified":"2026-01-15T13:57:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:57:47","slug":"events-calendar-illustrates-full-tapestry-of-culture-in-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/events-calendar-illustrates-full-tapestry-of-culture-in-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Events calendar illustrates full tapestry of culture in Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aurora is a multicultural community, and the full tapestry of the people who call this community home is now illustrated in a refreshed events calendar launched by the Town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Town of Aurora welcomed the New Year with the launch of a revised and updated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion calendar. Now in its third edition, it\u2019s intended to be a resource highlighting significant faith, cultural, and awareness dates \u201cthat reflect the vibrant diversity of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnderstanding and celebrating our differences brings us closer as a community,\u201d said the Town in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is a sentiment shared by Cindy Shaver of the Town\u2019s Communications Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the third year we\u2019ve done it and when we initially developed it, we looked at other calendars that have been developed within our community and within the GTA area,\u201d she says. \u201cThose were the initial ones that we looked to gather information and York Region has one, which is wonderful, but that reflects the community fabric of all nine municipalities, where Aurora, we think, is unique in that it may not necessarily have the same makeup as Vaughan or Richmond Hill do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key step in developing the made-in-Aurora calendar was analysing StatsCan data from 2021, which illustrated the top three religious denomination represented in Aurora. From there, they examined the data to look at \u201cdifferent dimensions of diversity,\u201d including the different ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, etc., represented in the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe also looked at awareness days that the Town typically celebrates to help educate and celebrate diversity and inclusion,\u201d says Shaver. \u201cWhen we\u2019re building the calendar in December for the coming year, we\u2019re looking back to see if we\u2019ve had any community engagement. Sometimes we get calls, on social media, and we get emails coming in that gives us a suggestion \u2013 \u2018This is my faith and we\u2019d really like to have this specific faith day recognized.\u2019 In general, we\u2019re happy to comply with that \u2013 if it\u2019s important to our community, it\u2019s important to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to really reflect the diversity of the Town of Aurora specifically. It\u2019s not exhaustive. It\u2019s not the calendar that is going to have every single faith date, but reflects our population.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resident feedback, for instance, has led to the inclusion of the Islamic observance of Ashura making it into the calendar for the first time, as well as Disability Employment Awareness Month, a time that has historically recognized by Town Hall, but has previously missed being included in the calendar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are being recognized and heard,\u201d says Shaver. \u201cIt\u2019s also an education tool. We\u2019ve gotten great feedback that people didn\u2019t necessarily know a specific Jewish holiday and what that meant for the community, and other faiths as well. It\u2019s been eye-opening to sort of educate people and bridge understanding \u2013 and with that comes inclusion. You start to understand your community better and you become closer and more tight-knit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the Town of Aurora\u2019s 2026 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Calendar, visit aurora.ca\/DEI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t see a holiday or observance reflected in the calendar, residents are invited to reach out to communications@aurora.ca<\/a> with their feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Aurora is a multicultural community, and the full tapestry of the people who call this community home is now illustrated in a refreshed events calendar launched by the Town. The Town of Aurora welcomed the New Year with the launch of a revised and updated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion calendar. Now in its third edition, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37494","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\/p3D2k4-9KK","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-29 07:23:28","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\/37494","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=37494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37495,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37494\/revisions\/37495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}