The ginger community is set to paint the town red this St. Patrick’s Day season.
Last year, across various social media platforms, students with cherry-kissed hair proudly participated in the trending “Ginger Run”—an initiative aimed at celebrating the uniqueness of red hair.
The roots of this phenomenon trace back to May 2013 when Montreal witnessed a sizeable influx of redheads as they hosted their inaugural gathering of ginger-haired individuals.
The event, which was hosted in Mount Royal, and coordinated via Facebook by a local redhead who aimed to cultivate a stronger sense of camaraderie among those sporting the distinctive hair colour, drew dozens of eager attendees from various corners of the province. Participants spanned all age groups, from toddlers to seniors.
Exclusive to natural redheads, the gathering provided an opportunity for participants to bond over their shared experience of growing up with ginger hair and acknowledge the challenges of standing out in a crowd.
With only one to two per cent of people in the world possessing the recessive gene responsible for red hair, being a part of the ginger community is truly unique.
What began as a local gathering in Montreal has evolved into a nationwide movement.
The Ginger Run, with its roots firmly planted in celebrating this uniqueness, has become a symbol of pride and solidarity among redheads.
With the help of Canadian Party Life (L), an Instagram and website that showcases Canadian party and pop culture content, the Ginger Run was brought to Canadian universities. Last St. Patrick’s Day, L organized for students from all universities to partake in the Ginger Run at 2.pm. in their respective cities. Even if a Ginger Run doesn’t happen this year, there’s hundreds of videos on TikTok documenting last year’s festivities.
The inaugural Ginger Run at Queen’s witnessed a heartwarming display of solidarity as natural redheads joyously ran down Aberdeen St., embraced by their peers who lined the street to cheer them on—even helping their ginger-haired friends who took a tumble along the way get back up on their feet.
Last year’s Ginger Run was a spectacle of ginger prowess and barking enthusiasm that left everyone, myself included, grinning from ear to ear. It proved once again that when it comes to fun, gingers know how to spice things up.
While details may be scarce on L’s Instagram page, we can only hope that the ginger community will again take to the streets for another round of slippery shenanigans. Making this an annual St. Patty’s tradition seems too good to up.
So, here’s to hoping for another ginger-filled dash that will leave us all with memories to cherish and maybe a few more face-plants to chuckle about.
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