How to Start up & host a 4th of July Parade. Make a new TRADITION

by dorisgentry | July 7, 2009 at 04:40 pm

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The Napa Sunrise Rotarians pondered long and hard back in March of 2009 whether to host the 4th of July Parade in Napa, Ca or not. There had not really been a big effort to do this for 30 years - should we? Finally - we decided to jump in and run with the concept - we budgeted $2,500.00 for the endeavor and began.

Doris Gentry was selected as the Chair and heard everyone say - we need bands. So the very first task - find bands - this was a huge request. In the summer, school is out and families are traveling - where to find a band? In the offices of Gentry, she quickly enlisted a talented high schooler named Lindsey as Parade Intern. Together, they sent thousands of emails. Pulling band lists from the internet, often getting hundreds of school emails - they worked quickly and diligently asking everyone for tips and advice.

The first solid band advice - professional judges. There is a point system - and if a band comes - they can get points from professional judges that add to the points the band has earned during the school year. This helps with the over-all judging of the quality of the bands. OK - so more sleuthing turned up the Pacific Coast Judges Association to cover all marching parades in Northern California and even farther north.

We set a date for them to come and tutor us (for a fee) and they were absolutely worth every penny - this was by far the largest expense - nearly $1,000.00 of the cost of hosting the parade - but - worth it ten times over. They had guidelines and suggestions. They even went outside with us and walked the parade route and offered so many tips you would be amazed.

After meeting with them - we sent hundreds and hundreds of emails to more schools and band directors. Probably 99% were not answered - but occasionally we did get a reply that would tell us they are out for the summer and do not march.

The best tip is your local band - we went there too - and basically got the SAME story. Rotary had said - 'Find a band!' - but we could not. We went on-line and filled out the 10+ page application for the Travis AFB Marching Band - the next week they replied we need to book them a year in advance. Needless to say - we did not get a band.

But then we continued recruiting others. We went to the schools and spoke before some of the High School Clubs asking them to enter a float to promote their club. We put articles in the paper, set-up a table at the local Chef's Market every week and manned that with volunteers to recruit entries.

And - we put a well-designed insert into the family trash bills and this went to 30,000 households - on there we told people to come and watch but also - email if they wanted to decorate a truck and enter the parade. This was the single best idea - we got more phone calls and emails from this one document than any other thing - followed by the Chef's Market booth - those are the two big things that made our parade a success.

We down-loaded about 100 parade applications from the internet and took the best from them all to design our entry application. When entrants filled this out - they would send in the check - $100.00 for Commercial entries, $50.00 from Horse Groups and Car Clubs then $35.00 for Non-Profits. It was free for all Veterans, Fire, Police and electeds. We did not have much complaing about the fees and if so - we did have Rotarians that had stepped up to the plate to offer and pay the admission for a Non-Profit if that was needed.

After we realized bands were just not going to happen - we started on the cute marching kids - all the dance troupe's and dance studios in town. Next moved to the martial arts groups and the gymnastics teams. After that we began calling all the horse clubs to get horses to march.

Simultaneously - we sent emails and called all the electeds, police and fire groups plus the Veteran's to get them lined up for entries. WOW - when I say this is a lot of work - that is an understatement. But was it ever FUN.

When the project began - we were hopeful to have 50 entries. This was the first year - we knew it would take time to ramp up and get going - so - on the day of - 61 entries marched - we were elated!

Now a word about the volunteers. All during the process, manpower was needed for PR plus my office to email and phone call trying to recruit entries. PLUS - we needed people to work the table at the Chef's Market - that was every week from 5 - 9pm - that was a task getting that spot handled with 2 - 4 people at all times - it was a busy table - everyone in Napa wondered if anyone would march so we had to encourage them every week.

On the day of the parade, Sat July 4th, our crew was there at 8am setting up registration and over-seeing the set-up of the huge stage with the judges tables. Fortunately for us - the city did the day-before no-parking signs and the day-of barricades for the street closures. WOW that sure did help.

We had the Napa High School Interact teens there bright and early donning their lime green vests that said PARADE across the back. With EACH Interacter we paired them with a Rotarian to man intersections and to work with line-up of the floats and horses.

A ton of volunteers makes the day fun and interesting - we had coffee for the early crew and dozens of donuts. We had clear plans of where they would serve, what they were to do while there and how long they were in place. We had maps for everyone so that any volunteer could answer any question - trying to make it a very Disneyland experience for all that came to watch.

Also - before, during and after the parade, we had quads and carts running the entire route checking in with all volunteers and handing out ice cold water bottles. There were walkie-talkies distributed all over the teams and they were USED often. From band-aids to heat to needing water - those were a good item to have distributed among the volunteers!

The local TV crew was there - local public access TV came and set up to film every entry plus they put a TV camera on one of the floats so they could film the crowds as they went down the street. Every parent will want a copy of that DVD! The newspapers were there and we got an Official Parade Photographer to step up and offer full services posting all the pics on the web and with every sale, 100% goes to the Grand Marshalls in the parade. We chose the Pathway Vets Home and so they will receive the proceeds from all sales of the parade photos.

After the parade, we had crews clean-up, the stages broken down/carted off, judges sequestered for their winning tabulations and ice chests collected. The city came by and began lifting the barricades and traffic began moving.

By an hour after the parade - you could not tell we had been there - Napa City was back to its normal self and the parade was a memory on digital camera memory cards.

When the judges told us the winners, we passed that to our capable paperwork person who got the checks ($100.00 1st Place, $75.00 Second & $50.00 Third) and put those in the mail today with a nice letter. We had 6 categories of winners along with comments from the judges.

Wednesday, we have our debriefing lunch and focus on what to do differently for next year. If we cannot get bands - then we will recruit garage bands. Music makes a parade followed by horses and kids - any kinds of kids - baton twirlers got rave applause and the tumblers and the dancers too - kids are what a parade is about. We did good in the kid department this year - there were over 600 marching in the parade - and we got quite a few bands on the back of pick-up trucks too. So next year - we will be bigger. Better. Stronger. Louder. And what is truly the most important of all this - America will be celebrated on her birthday from Napa CA - and my Rotary is the one that stepped up and stepped out to make that happen - yeah!