This year marks the 130th Rose Parade on Tuesday, January 1st. It has been a
tradition amongst Kiwanis and local high school Key Clubs in the Sierra Nevada area to attend the float decorating process and volunteer in any way imaginable until the day comes for all the marvelous floats to be on display. 18 Minarets Key Clubbers attended alongside students from schools such as Yosemite, Clovis North, Bullard, and Selma as well as others in the Central Valley area.
Taking a charter bus to and from Pasadena, half the battle was enduring the hours spent on the road, but the trip was well worth it. Forty floats in total premiered on many live broadcast stations on New Year’s Day including ABC, NBC, UNIVISION, and more. For many Key Club members, being apart of something much bigger than themselves and putting in the time and effort in an international community far away from their own local one, it’s a powerful message to be heard by many. Specifically, Minarets Key Clubbers had the privilege of working on the Lions Club float as well as the Kiwanis and the American-Armenian float.
Doing actions such as gluing rose petals alongside floats, stapling greenery alongside the bases of some, and even the more tedious work such as separating tiny flower petals from stems, and removing caps from flower vials and emptying out the old water to be replaced with the new, they were surely busy the whole 8 hour volunteering shift. Cheyenne Upton and Rebecca Townsend both recall their specific duties later when interviewed; with Rebecca commenting, “ I participated in vile shucking, painting the Kiwanis float, and I glued flowers to the Kiwanis float” and Cheyenne added, “We put a bunch of effort into what we did like gluing flowers everywhere on the float and having a good time getting to know other fellow key clubbers”. As they left the place, other groups such as the Circle K clubs were entering the scene to pick up from our ending and continue through their own 8-hour venture.
Overall the experience was one to be enjoyed and remembered with Rebecca commenting, “It was a really fun experience and I will definitely go next year. It was fun to see the floats I helped work on, on the tv” and Cheyenne with, “Overall, this was a wonderful experience, I’m glad that I could go and I can’t wait to go next year!”. To anyone interested in these events and more, grab an application and join Key Club today.
