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Thousands of people flooded the streets of Kelowna on Saturday to celebrate Vaisakhi, after a three-year pandemic pause on the festival.
Vaisakhi is a celebration of the birth of Khalsa and the spring harvest season.
The significant event, shut down several roads in the area around the Okanagan Sikh Temple as a crowd of people marched through during a parade.
“Today we’re singing divine hymns in the neighbourhood to bless the neighbourhood,” said Paramjit Patara, Okanagan Sikh Temple president.
One of the most notable parts of the festival was the amount of food, according to Patara there was food set up at booths in every corner.
“Today is unbelievable how many stalls there are of different foods, we couldn’t actually accommodate all of them. There were more people that wanted to put up stalls,” said Patara.
With this being the first Vaisakhi festival since before the pandemic in 2019, a common theme among the crowd was being grateful to be back together as a community.
“To see our community, just gathered happy and smiling and sharing a good time is nothing more than heartwarming,” said Ajeet Brar, a parade participant.
This is the 13th annual Vaisakhi festival in Kelowna and it has grown exponentially over the years, in fact, organizers say this is the largest turnout yet with close to 5,000 people in attendance.
“The community has grown in Kelowna as well in the Okanagan Valley but especially in Kelowna since the last time we did it in 2019,” said Patara.
“I’m really proud of this – there’s a sense of proudness here.”
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