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Virtual Party for the Planet to offer environmental education

City of Surrey’s annual event planned for Earth Day
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Bubbles fill the air during the 2019 Party for the Planet. This year it will be online. (City of Surrey photo)

This year’s Party for the Planet won’t be an in-person event, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but party-goers will still have the chance to take part, learning a little bit about the environment along the way.

The City of Surrey-hosted event, now entering its 10th year, will be live-streamed on Earth Day (Thursday, April 22), and will feature environmental education from a number of city departments, including urban forestry, parks partnerships, culture services, engineering, waste collection and recycling.

The broadcast will be hosted by Neal Aven, Surrey’s manager of parks.

“Virtual Party for the Planet will showcase the City’s environmental initiatives and commitments in an engaging and inclusive way,” said Aven.

In a normal year in which gatherings aren’t restricted, the city’s Party for the Planet event – often dubbed B.C.’s largest Earth Day celebration – is held at Surrey’s Civic Plaza and features vendors, workshops and various concerts and performances.

Last month, the City of Surrey announced that the Party for the Planet would be one of a number of major events moving to an online-only format this year, with the others being the Fusion Festival and Canada Day, while the city’s annual Tree Lighting Festival, set for November, was still in wait-and-see mode with regard to whether an in-person event can be held.

Another event, the International Children’s Festival, was cancelled outright, with plans to bring it back in 2022.

At this year’s Party for the Planet, topics to be covered on the video stream will be the collaboration between sustainability and art – as demonstrated by the Museum of Surrey’s Nature’s Clothesline exhibit – as well as workshops on how to make crafts with re-used materials, and instructions on how to make a button blanket and cloth canoe with LaDonna Wiks Joseph.

As well, the release notes the show will feature performances from a number of Indigenous entertainers, including the Stars of the North Drum Group, Wild Moccasin Dancers, Andrea Menard, Wayne Lavallee and Candace Curr.

For more information, visit www.surrey.ca/partyfortheplanet