Feature: Colorado's premier Chinese New Year's party helps

by Peter Mertz

DENVER, the UNITED STATES, Jan. 28, (Xinhua) -- Colorado's premier Chinese New Year's party made history in 2017 by drawing huge crowds to downtown Denver's Civic Center Park.

It was the first time the Yip Foundation's event was held at a national-caliber, historic venue, and more than 500 people crowed in the Year of the Rooster with rousing song and cheer.

"Tremendous energy here tonight, everybody's having fun," said Guinness Book record yo-yo holder John Higby, 41, who just returned from a successful tour in China.

"China is such an unusual place filled with good people," Higby told Xinhua Saturday night, as the crowd cheered behind him.

Higby was one of more than 20 performers and entertainers on hand to excite a crowd that was filled with new millennials, as well as Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper.

"Look around this room," Hickenlopper told Xinhua. "It is filled with excitement - with Latinos, Chinese, blacks, whites, Indonesians - all kinds of people from all walks of life," Hickenlooper said. "This is what America is all about."

Sounds of frivolity reached the 12-meter ceilings of the 1909 neoclassic building, and red drapes, lanterns and banners -- traditional Chinese New Year colors -- adorned the spaces below.

Loud sounds of music, song, and mirth filled the air.

The annual Yip New Year's party also doubles as a critically needed fundraiser toward furthering the group's focus on helping poor children in rural areas.

In 2017, the group's primary focus will be rural, poor children in China and southeastern Colorado," Yip Foundation cofounder Jimmy Yip said.

Yips said although China, like America, had money, sometimes impoverished, remote areas got overlooked, and that's where the foundation stepped in.

"What an amazing, direct connection between China and the USA," said Yip Foundation Vice-President Okie Arnot, a volunteer who helped the Yips with their first fundraiser 15 years ago, "It's all about helping children."

It began in 2012, shortly after Linda and Jimmy Yip's 19-year-old son Nathan was unexpectedly and tragically killed in a car accident.

Since 2002, the foundation raised more than 4 million U.S. Dollars - money targeted toward building schools and orphanages and helping poor children in Africa, South America, China and the United States.

"They turned a tragedy into triumph," said Gary Corbett, one of hundreds of volunteers who donated time Saturday to help the Yip Foundation raise money.

"That is something unique and very attractive about the Yip Foundation, it is almost completely volunteer," Arnot told Xinhua, "The money goes straight to the children."

The Saturday night party lasted until midnight, and used all three-floors of the civil center, that re-opened in September 2016 after a 6 million U.S. Dollars renovation.

2017 celebrants enjoyed delicious food and drink, cross-cultural games, music, and crowded red-laced booths filled with calligraphers, fortunetellers, and cultural knick-knacks shops.

"It's all about closing cultural gaps, and that is necessary for peace," said Corbett, an auctioneer who was dressed in a 19th-century, vintage, all-white suit and tails and a white, wide-brimmed hat.

In the early hours of the party, Corbett took to one stage wielding a microphone, encouraging donations to support the foundation. Within minutes he had raised close to 100,000 U.S. dollars.

"Their role helping children in rural Colorado is simply amazing," said Hickenlooper of the Yips.

"Education breeds confidence, and confidence breeds hope," the governor said.

"A lack of education shouldn't define your success, and thanks to the Yips, every town in Colorado is sharing in that success," he said.

"The Yip's goal in four years is that every town in rural Colorado will have abundant, redundant broadband," Hickenlooper said as the crowd roared in appreciation.