Diversity will be celebrated in Nanaimo this weekend.
The Old City Quarter Association will be hosting the annual Nanaimo Multicultural Festival on Saturday (June 24) beginning at 10:30 a.m. The free event, which takes place on Wesley Street, features a range of culturally diverse food and live performances. There will also be family-oriented activities and vendors selling products from around the world.
Event organizer Tina Coldwell said with so much hate and division taking place around the world right now, it’s time for Nanaimo to celebrate its diversity.
“We have a really diverse town with so many different cultures. I think we should be celebrating all these different cultures and getting along,” she said.
Performers at the festival this year include African-born musician Alpha Yaya Diallo, Chinese musicians Jirong Huang and Laura Yu Wu and Caleb Hart, a musician from Trinidad and Tobago. There will also be a traditional Chinese dance performance.
Coldwell said this year’s festival will feature a beer garden and there will be a live chainsaw-carving demonstration.
“We’ve never had a live chainsaw carving before,” she said.
In previous years, the multicultural festival received its funding from the Downtown Nanaimo Business Improvement Association, who received money from the City of Nanaimo. But in March, the city axed its matching grant to the DNBIA, leaving funding for events such as the multicultural festival in jeopardy.
Coldwell said the Old City Quarter Association stepped up to the plate to ensure the festival remained alive.
“It’s been interesting to find money for the festival,” she said. “The bottom line is we are pulling it off this year and it is still happening.”
For more information on the festival, www.oldcityquarter.com/multiculturalfestival/.
nicholas.pescod@nanaimobulletin.com