By Matthew Abrey

A Vancouver-based Chinese group aiming to promote unity and break a Guinness World Record through drumming was in Kelowna Monday morning.

Canada Day Drumming Celebration started in 2017 for Canada’s 150th birthday, in an effort to simultaneously celebrate Canada’s birthday, multiculturalism, and diversity, by having people across the country drum for six minutes.

“We are here to introduce our nationwide Canada Day celebration to Kelowna,” said Richard Wong, Chairman of the organization. “We want to celebrate Canada, our great country, and promote diversity multicultural harmony, peace, love and laughter for a better world.”

The event currently takes place in 12 Canadian cities, including Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

The morning’s festivities, which included a drumming demonstration, a chinese dragon dance display and an exchange of banners, drew a fairly large crowd to Stuart Park, who were all given small hand drums to drum along to the multiple presentations.

Kelowna city councillor, Maxine DeHart, was one of several officials on hand for the festivities, and seemed very eager to introduce the event to Kelowna.

“It’s very exciting and important,” said DeHart. “They already have 12 cities across Canada participating in this event, and I think Kelowna wants to be included in that… Kelowna is a very diverse and engaging community, and we love what Mr. Wong and his delegation are saying to us.

“We embrace harmony and diversity in Kelowna, and we are very happy that we were able to have this presentation in our city today.”

Canada Day Drumming Celebration plans to return to all 12 previous cities for Canada Day 2019, and hopes to add several more cities to the list.

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