This weekend Vancouver Whitecaps FC hope to clinch a playoff spot, zombies will dance in Surrey, the West Coast Women’s Show will entertain in Abbotsford, and local attractions will host Halloween-themed events. Rain or shine you can check out some Halloween Walking Tours, Watch Halloween Movies, visit Haunted Houses, and take your pick at the pumpkin patch.
Photo credit: Ann Hung on Flickr
Things to do in Vancouver This Weekend
Events that run for longer than three days in a row are highlighted in green below.
Friday, October 24, 2014
West Coast Women’s Show
2nd Annual Zombie Walk/Flashmob in Downtown Maple Ridge
Suor Angelica by Giacomo Puccini
Alicia Tobin’s Come Draw With Me
Rio Grind Film Festival
Chinatown Haunted House
Haunted Vancouver Trolley Tours
Burnaby Village Museum: Haunted Village
Vancouver Writers’ Festival
Dances for a Small Stage
Evil Dead: The Musical
Stanley Park Halloween Ghost Train
Bear Creek Haunted Forest Scream Train
Fright Nights at Playland
Pacific Theatre Presents: The Rainmaker
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Sponsored by Miss604: Thrill The World Surrey
Vancouver Whitecaps FC vs Colorado
Halloween in the Forest, Surrey
Beyond the Magic: National Chemistry Week at UBC
Speed Coaching
Sea to Sky Gondola Trick-Or-Treating on the Panorama Trail
Vancouver Pride Presents: The Haunting at the Commodore
All Souls at Mountain View Cemetery
BC SPCA Richmond A Fetching Affair
Vancouver Halloween Dog Parade
Vancouver Shogi Club
BC Beer Awards
Burnaby Halloween Howler
Cloverdale Halloween Costume Parade
Haunted Farm – Stewart Farm Surrey
Historic Halloween at Britannia Shipyards in Richmond
ArtStarts: Painting Magnificent Coastal Forests with Sandi Henrich
Suor Angelica by Giacomo Puccini
Spook-tacular Hallowe’en Fun at Cambie Community Centre in Richmond
Burnaby Art on the Spot Zombie Attack!
Saturday Afternoon Dance Party
Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Laneway House Tour
36th Annual Rock & Gem Show Port Moody
Stanley Park Noir
TEDx Renfrew Collingwood
Image Process: A Fundraiser for the Western Front Archive
The Chan Centre Presents: Diego El Cigala
Family Fright at the Fort: Fort Langley
Rio Grind Film Festival
West Coast Women’s Show
Chinatown Haunted House
Haunted Vancouver Trolley Tours
Burnaby Village Museum: Haunted Village
Vancouver Writers’ Festival
Dances for a Small Stage
Evil Dead: The Musical
Stanley Park Halloween Ghost Train
Bear Creek Haunted Forest Scream Train
Fright Nights at Playland
Pacific Theatre Presents: The Rainmaker
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Rock ‘n’ Roll Oasis Vancouver Half Marathon
Family Fright at the Fort: Fort Langley
Tea Sparrow’s First Annual Tea-Off
Surrey Art Gallery Family Day
Rio Grind Film Festival
West Coast Women’s Show
Chinatown Haunted House
Burnaby Village Museum: Haunted Village
Vancouver Writers’ Festival
Stanley Park Halloween Ghost Train
Bear Creek Haunted Forest Scream Train
Fright Nights at Playland
View the full monthly event list to plan ahead at any time. Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for frequent updates about local events and community happenings.
Dress for Success will host the Success Luncheon on October 29th to celebrate and inspire business leaders in our community. Featured panelists include Nancy MacKay, Founder & CEO of MacKay CEO Forums; Jill Schnarr, VP, Community Investment & Engagement, TELUS; and Donna Wilson, SVP, People, LifeLabs. Dress for Success Vancouver client, Deepika Gupta will also share her story of personal and professional growth, adversity, and success.
Success Luncheon
What: Dress For Success Vancouver Success Luncheon
When: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 from 12:00pm to 2:00pm
Where: Pan Pacific Hotel (300-999 Canada Place, Vancouver)
Tickets: Purchase online for $100 with group/table option available
About: This signature event will be emceed by Fiona Forbes, Host & Producer, Shaw TV and Moderated by Laurie Schultz, CEO, ACL Services. All proceeds will go towards Dress for Success Vancouver’s programs committed to empowering women into the workforce.
About Dress for Success Vancouver
I first heard about Dress for Success over 5 years ago and I recently made it to their downtown Vancouver headquarters to learn more about their important work in the community. Volunteers streamed in and out of the space as Christina Florencio, Marketing and Sponsorship Manager, gave me a tour. Christina also filled me in our the three core services that Dress for Success provides.
I was aware of the dressing service that provides a professional attire for disadvantaged women returning to or entering the workforce but there are two other key components to Dress for Success.
There is the Career Centre that provides clients with career guidance, technology skills and support in their job searches. Career Center staff members work one-on-one with clients and the program also has the support of volunteers who come from varied professional backgrounds including job developers, career specialists and human resources executives.
The Professional Women’s Group program is then an 18 month program that provides education, mentoring and professional guidance.
How You Can Support Dress for Success
There are several ways to support Dress for Success on top of online donations:
- Planned giving: Support one women or specific programs for clients by sponsoring an interview suiting, job preparation, or the Professional Women’s Group. Use the gift tool to plan your contribution throughout the year.
- Item donations: The organization is currently in need of specific types of item donations (and wish list items) such as handbags (appropriate for work), plus size interview attire (18 and up), small size interview attire (size 00-2), outerwear, and new makeup.
- Special events: Attend events like the Success Luncheon on October 29th or Shop for a Cause November 14th and November 15th.
For more information about Dress for Success Vancouver, follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and their blog.
Mountain View Cemetery, Vancouver’s only cemetery, is as old as the city itself. Made up of 106 acres along Fraser St between 21st Ave and 43rd Ave, it is home to several specialized tours and events throughout the year.
All Souls at Mountain View Cemetery
The 10th annual Night for All Souls is Saturday, October 25, 2014 from 6:00pm to 10:00pm. The Celebration Hall will be open for tea until 9:00pm and there will be personal memorial making and evening programming throughout the entire memorial week until Sunday, November 2, 2014. Mountain View’s All Souls events are free and include talks, presentations, crafts, and music that explore various traditions and rituals.
Walking Tours
Mountain View is the final final resting place of almost 150,000 people, including Vancouver mayors; first responders who died while on active duty; WWI and WWII veterans; Freemasons, Knights of Pythias, and Odd Fellows members; and victims of disasters such as the SS Sophia, Lakeview Tram, and Rogers Pass.
Walking tours are held rain or shine for $10 cash per person. Scheduled tours are promoted on Twitter and this page. For self-guided tours you can download PDF maps online for Self Guided Walk; Interesting Citizens: Vancouver’s Mayors; and Interesting Citizens: Princess Sophia Sinking.
The City of Vancouver is celebrating the two year anniversary of the expanded city Green Bin program for food scraps recycling. This program allows residents to recycle all their food scraps and is now available to about 100,000 single family/duplexes households and 1,800 multi-unit residential buildings currently serviced by the City.
As of January 2015, a Metro Vancouver organics disposal ban on all food scraps comes into effect across the region. The regional ban will mean that food scraps will no longer be permitted in regular garbage. The City is also intending to make food scraps collection and diversion programs mandatory across all sectors of the City.
About The Green Bin/Food Scraps Program
To date, Vancouver households participating in the City’s Green Bin program have reduced the amount of garbage sent to the landfill by an average of about 40 per cent.
Recycling food scraps reduces the amount of garbage produced, cuts down on global warming pollution and creates a useful compost product for local gardens.
First introduced in 2010, the program allowed residents with City waste collection services to add uncooked fruit and vegetables to their Green Bin. In 2011, a pilot project was initiated to test an expanded program, allowing all food scraps and food soiled paper to be placed in bins, and included the proposed change in collection frequency.
The program was expanded in 2012 to all single family/duplex households and to 1,800 multi-unit residential buildings that receive waste collection service from the City. Since the switch to city-wide weekly organics pick-up and bi-weekly garbage pick-up, the City has seen compostable organics collected increase by approximately 64 per cent, and a 40 per cent decrease in garbage collected. That’s about 24,500 tonnes less garbage going to the landfill each year.
The City has also contributed funding to the Food Scraps Drop Spot Program through a Greenest City Grant that serves residents living in multi-unit residential building who don’t receive City collection service. As of July 1st, 2014, the program expanded to seven locations and has collected more than 120 tonnes of food scraps from 38,000 drops since the inauguration of the program in 2011.
Win a Zero Waste Holiday Prize Pack
To promote the organics disposal ban and information about food scraps recycling in the new years, the City of Vancouver and I both have a Zero Waste Holiday prize pack to give away that contains:
- Family pass (2 adults, 2 children under age 17) for the Bright Nights Christmas Train in Stanley Park
- Family pass (2 adults, 2 children under age 18) for the Festival of Lights at VanDusen Gardens
- 2 reusable shopping bags
- A water bottle
- “Zero Waste Home” book
There are three ways that you can enter to win:
- Take the Food Scraps 101 Quiz and you’ll be entered in the City’s draw.
- Take the Food Scraps 101 Quiz and leave a comment back here with your score to be entered in my draw.
- You can also post the following on Twitter to enter to win:
Both my draw and the City of Vancouver’s draw will take place on November 5, 2014. I’ll draw my winner at 12:00pm that day. The winner of my prize pack is not eligible to win the City of Vancouver’s prize as well.
Whether the night is dark and stormy or clear with an autumn breeze, these three seasonal walking tours will not only educate and entertain, they’re sure to give you goosebumps.
3 Halloween Walking Tours in Vancouver
SS Beaver Shipwreck off Stanley Park. 1935 – Archives item# LGN 500. Photographer: Bailey Bros.
Host: Stanley Park History
Tour: Stanley Park Noir
Date/Time: Saturday, October 25, 2014 only from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.
Details: “Discover the darker side of Stanley Park’s past. Murders, suicides, tragic accidents, violent crimes, drownings and mysterious incidences are all part of “The Jewel of Vancouver’s” 126 years of history. From the unsolved murder of The Babes in the Woods, to a connection to the Janet Smith murder mystery, this tour covers headline making crimes, as well as the more “secret” ones. It also features stories about: park cemeteries & final resting places, unusual hunting stories, buried treasure, storm damage, memorials to the dead, protests, court cases and much more.”
Participation: $10 cash, drop in only and rain or shine. Meet at the viewing plaza overlooking Lost Lagoon at the foot of Alberni Street.
Host: Stanley Park Ecology Society
Tour: Creatures of the Night
Date/Time: Thursdays through Sundays until November 1st running every half hour from 6:30pm to 8:30pm on Thursdays, and until 9:00pm Fridays to Sundays.
Details: “Running in parallel with the Stanley Park Ghost Train, Stanley Park Ecology Society’s nature program, “Creatures of the Night” is an entertaining adventure for explorers of all ages. From the miniature train plaza, follow your ecology guide through the forest on a 30 minute candle-lit walk to meet some of Stanley Park’s elusive nocturnal animals.”
Participation: Free. Meet at the Stanley Park Children’s Farmyard & Miniature Railway. Lanterns provided. Good for kids and families.
Host: Forbidden Vancouver
Tour: The Lost Souls of Gastown
Date/Time: Nightly from October 17th to November 2nd
Details: “Venture into our city’s earliest and most gruesome history this Halloween season. A time when Vancouver was the Granville Townsite, a violent frontier town of hustlers and thieves, vagabonds and bawdy girls.Meet Vancouver’s first madam, who built a glamorous Gastown bawdy house before the city even had a school. Catch the horror-filled tale of a long-forgotten plague that clutched the city in its feverish grasp. And relive the terror of the fire that ate up Gastown in minutes – sending people sprinting for their lives down Water Street. The Lost Souls of Gastown is not a ghost tour. It’s a gothic theatre adventure that pulls you so deep into the swirling lamplight and darkened alleys of Gastown’s murky past, you may have a hard time finding your way back out…”
Participation: $19 for seniors and students $22 for adults. Meet at Cathedral Square, across from Holy Rosary Cathedral at Dunsmuir & Richards Streets.
Related Posts: Places to Watch Halloween Movies, Haunted Houses to Visit, and Pumpkin Patches.
