The 72nd Santa Paula Holiday Parade may look just previous years, but this year, features a Santa Claus who is deaf.
"It's a gentleman, whose daughter is deaf and he took her to go and see Santa and she couldn't communicate with him because Santa didn't know sign language. So he's taken it upon himself to learn how to do Santa," explained John Marquez at the Chamber of Commerce, who is one of the organizers.
He says inclusion is a core value of the city and a deaf Santa Claus is the perfect person to carry this message.
"We didn't see a lot of awareness of the deaf community in Ventura County so we thought this was the perfect opportunity to bring attention to it," he told KCLU.
"It tells the story using Santa as the example, so we thought this is something we need to do for our community," said Marquez.
The Santa Paula Holiday parade is scheduled to take place on November 26th in downtown Santa Paula (869 E Main Street).
The parade will start at approximately 6:30 p.m. and is free to all.
Shopping, food and other family friendly activities will be available in downtown Santa Paula to help kick off the holiday season.
