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Philadelphia is gearing up to celebrate the Lunar New Year starting Tuesday, bringing together many of the city’s Asian communities.

For the Year of the Horse, the Philadelphia Suns, a volunteer-led youth program, will make appearances throughout the region with its lion dance troupe, dazzling audiences with their choreography and, of course, many firecrackers.

The lion dance is a symbolic Chinese dance performed to chase away evil spirits and bring good luck and fortune at the start of the new year. It’s performed by dancers in a colorful lion costume, moving to the sound of drums.

Suns members and volunteers packed into a small Chinatown storage space the Friday before the holiday, cleaning up the lion heads for a series of performances.

Chadford Jung has been with the organization for more than a decade and did lion dance as a kid. These days, he’s on the other side, setting up the next generation of performers.

“I enjoy sharing and teaching new things to people who might not experience this,” Jung said. “It’s just something that we can all share and talk about as a community. As a cultural thing, it’s important for the youth to understand where we all come from and just spread that and keep it going as far as we can.”

Founded in 1972 in Chinatown, the Philadelphia Suns started as a basketball club and has since grown into a nationally recognized nonprofit that provides athletic, cultural and educational programs for the city’s youth.

Quoc Pham stepped into a leadership role with the Suns a few years ago to preserve the cultural pillar of Philadelphia’s Asian American community and help showcase it to the rest of the city.

“When I was growing up, I did not really know that there was even such things like this,” he said. “It’s just awesome to see that there is a program like this that can give back and learn about the heritage.”

One of the volunteers who helped freshen up the lions on Friday was Emily Burke. She said she’s been looking to connect with others and get involved in the city. One day, she saw on Instagram that the Suns were looking for extra hands.

“If you read the news and you’re upset about how the world is going or how the actions in your city are going, one of the best things you can do to feel like you’re making a difference is getting involved with the community,” Burke said.

High school student Collin Ath is one of this year’s lion dancers. He said he’s met a lot of people throughout the organization, including some he could look up to “like role models” as he grows into adulthood.

“In the future, looking back on this, it’s going to be a big part of my youthful years,” Ath said. ”It’s just very fun seeing all the smiles that I can make happen through the lion head.”

Ath found out about the Suns through fellow high schooler Eugene Koesmadjie, who said he enjoyed not only being able to entertain through the performances, but also the time spent with Ath and the other dancers.

“Just imagine this: Imagine both of us just watching the lions and just looking at each other and say, ‘Oh, didn’t we do that, too?’ We know what they’re doing. We know how they’re working, and just looking back at it, you never take these moments for granted,” Koesmadjie said.

The Lunar New Year night parade in Philadelphia’s Chinatown section will feature a lion dance performance at 10 p.m. on Monday. On Feb. 22, the neighborhood will host the Lunar New Year Parade at 11 a.m.