Vernon entrepreneur Barry Stecyk is busy preparing for Khalsa Day and the Vaisakhi parade in Surrey next week.
“I am not a Sikh but this is a celebration of universal brotherhood…a day which all Canadians can be proud of,” said Stecyk, the president of HevyD’s Kettle Korn.
No stranger to giving, Stecyk is preparing to hand out thousands of bags of popcorn at the Khalsa Day festivities in Surrey on April 17 along the Nagar Kirtan or the Vaisakhi parade route, which will begin from Gurdawara Sahib Dasmesh Darbar.
“Sikhs are world famous for their charitable acts and my family and company are proud to be associated with Vaisakhi,” said Stecyk, who recently raised funds with The Province and Save-On Foods for the victims of the Haitian earthquake.
Last year, Stecyk and his HevyD’s Kettle Korn arranged to send 600 bags of kettle corn to Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, each one with a message from an elementary school student in Vernon.
“I am looking forward to Vaisakhi and celebrating this great day with our Sikh brothers and sisters,” said Stecyk.
He is not alone.
From individuals to corporations in B.C., across Canada and around the world, the celebration of Khalsa peaks over the next two weeks in parties, parades and religious ceremonies.
This Saturday, the annual Vancouver Vaisakhi Parade is expected to attract about 40,000 people as it winds its way through Main Street from the Ross Street Gurdwara.
The festivities organized by the Khalsa Diwan Society begin on April 9 with the offering of the new chola sahib (covering) to the temple’s Nishan Sahib (flag pole)
But it is the “big one” in Surrey next week, which will attract an estimated 200,000 people from B.C., Alberta and Washington State.
The Surrey Vaisakhi Parade is the largest known parade outside of India, with event officials estimating attendance annual growth of 15% over the last few years.
Among those preparing to join the parade are the organizers of the Cloverdale Rodeo, which plans to have a special South Asian theme this year at its event next month.
They are joining other Canadian companies like RBC Royal Bank, Nando’s, Certified Management Accountants, TD Canada Trust, and many others which annually reach out to the South Asian community at the Vaisakhi festivities in Surrey to celebrate Sikhism’s holy day.
 “It is so great to see all these companies and individuals from all walks of life come together for Vaisakhi,” said Babar Singh Tumber, a Surrey contractor, as he was busy helping putting the final touches to the lead float for the parade.
“We are supposed to serve God by serving other people every day,” explained Babbar Singh, a father of three, who after work, spends an average of about four hours a day at Dasmesh Darbar Sikh temple cooking in the kitchen to cleaning the floors.
Like him, B.C. Sikh’s community is front and centre when it comes to community service, supporting charitable causes and providing relief aid.
One group called Sikhcess Vancouver has taken the concept of Langar, or the free community kitchens, into the Downtown Eastide to feed the homeless on a regular basis.
Last January, Vancouver-area South Indian Radio stations raised over $1.5 million in donations for victims of the Haitian earthquake, continuing a pattern of generosity seen after the Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the natural disasters in Pakistan and Indonesia.
The B.C. Children’s Hospital also receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from B.C.’s Sikh community every year, which are raised by individuals, at charitable events and by individuals.
Vaisakhi also called Baisakhi  is held every April to celebrate the birth of the Sikh identity or Khalsa in 1699 by Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur Sahib, a village in Punjab.
Guru Gobind Singh, Sikhisim’s 10th guru founded Khalsa to proclaim the oneness of humanity and unite everyone regardless of caste, color, race or gender in a culmination of the Sikh faith, which was founded by Guru Nanak Dev Ji.
Love, service to humanity, tolerance and forgiveness are the elements of the Khalsa code of conduct which demands Sikhs use their ordinary and everyday lives as a way to get closer to God.
In Toronto, more than 100,000 people will go for prayers at Ontario Khalsa Darbar on April 14.
The Ontario Gurdwara and Sikh Council and Gurdwara Committee’s 24th annual Sikh Khalsa Day parade in Toronto will be held Sunday, April 25. It will begin at 1pm from the CNE grounds.
Sikhs in the U.S. who have been staging Vaisakhi events since last month also took the opportunity of the religious occasion to congratulate President Barack Obama for the passage of the Health Care Reform bill which will expand insurance coverage to nearly all Americans.
“As Sikh Americans are gearing towards the celebration of Vaisakhi which inspires us to stand for the defenseless, we will certainly celebrate that more than 30 million uninsured Americans will finally have health insurance coverage,” said Dr. Rajwant Singh, Chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education.
“Guided by teachings of Sikh Gurus, we feel that health insurance reform that provides the highest quality of care for the greatest number of American, is necessary,” said Dr Rajwant Singh.