By MAGGIE MCMURRAY
Moapa Valley Progress
Windy weather didn’t keep the crowds at home on Saturday as the Moapa Band of Paiutes hosted its annual CAN celebration complete with parade and plenty of Disney characters.
CAN is an acronym for Child Abuse and Neglect and April is CAN awareness month. The tribe hosts a festival every year that is not only full of fun activities, but also brings together informational booths on the resources that are out there for tribe members.
“It is an opportunity for us to gather for something positive,” said Tribal Chairman Darren Daboda. “Events like this help us grow together as a community. It’s also a great opportunity to learn about services that are available for us.”
The CAN celebration started bright and early Saturday morning with a sunrise ceremony that included a blessing and a flag raising. After that, participants of the poker walk hit the road. Entrants followed a set path with checkpoints along the way. At each checkpoint, walkers received a playing card and at the end of the walk, the person with the best poker hand won a prize.
Perhaps the highlight of the day for everyone was the CAN parade. The parade route was lined early with eager watchers as well as children with bags to collect candy. The parade began and ended with a typical show of lights and sirens by law enforcement officers, followed by an honor guard carrying flags, and several beautiful and creative floats in the middle.
This year’s theme was Disney Characters. Thus, many of the float decorations were centered around Disney themes, such as a whole float of Mickey Mouse characters, a Pirates of the Caribbean float and more.
After the parade, the fun continued. Usually, the parking lot of the community building is full of booths, but this year in deference to the wind, many of the booths moved indoors and the main meeting room was overflowing with vendors, information booths, and plenty of fun crafts for the young and young-at-heart to make.
Many informational booths were there to spread the word about the services being offered. Nicolet Palmer, the supervisor at the Las Vegas office of the Child Care Development Fund, was there to let people know about a program that pays for child care.
“Right now we only have two participating families in Moapa and we have room for plenty more,” Palmer said. “We came today to get the word out that our programs are here to help.”
Loretta Lee from the Parker Indian Health Center was also there to offer health services as well as help attendees sign up for alternative resources such as Medicare and veteran’s benefits.
Representatives from two different Lions clubs were there to give free vision and foot screening to anyone who wished. They also brought boxes of free purses and donated them for anyone who wanted a new purse.
Jeannine Holland from the Las Vegas Breakfasters Lions club said, “We come and do this every year because there’s a need for it and where there’s a need, there’s a Lion.”
Mostly, however, the day was about kids. From the candy in the parade to the bounce house out front, the day was all about celebrating youngsters. There were craft booths, wand-making booths, face-painting booths, crown-making booths, and many others.
Zadie Jim, 8, was there dressed as Rapunzel. She said, “This is a fun event because we get to dress up. I chose Rapunzel because she is my favorite character. I really like watching the parade.”
Caleb Lee, 9, agreed. “I like watching the parade and getting candy,” he said. “But I also really like the bounce house. Everything is a lot of fun.”
The festival wrapped up with a free community lunch of hot dogs and hamburgers. Court and Enrollment Clerk Miranda Jackson spent much of the morning working on the lunch in the kitchen. “I do it for the community,” Jackson said. “We usually all get together only for funerals, so it is really great to see everyone come out and celebrate together doing something fun.”
Event organizer and Family Advocate Laura Watters was pleased with how the event turned out, even though adjustments had to be made for the wind.
“It’s been a great day,” she said. “We had to cancel the movie because we had to bring the booths inside where we would have shown it, but everything else has gone great and we have had a great turnout. It’s been a lot of fun.”
