The 20th Annual Caring and Sharing parade was held on Sunday, November 1st with rain in the morning turning to a nice afternoon. We started the Parade off with a Tribute to Tom Redmond who had recently passed. Tom was the founder of the Parade and many other PBA events so we wanted to take a moment to honor him. Our Grand Marshals were several WW II Veterans. We wanted to honor them in celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the ending of the war. They were Elwood Trapp Sr. – US Army Combat Engineer, Earl Daff – US Army served in France & Germany, Charles R. Howard – USMC 3rd Division 29th Battalion , Doc Stallings – Army Air Core Philippians, Paul Kline – US Navy Radar man in South Pacific & Asia . We want to thank Veteran Charlie Johns for driving the WWII Veterans in the Parade.

Through the generosity of community residents, businesses, and organizations, the event generated approximately $10,000 in food donations! A special thanks to Lauer’s Supermarket for their continued support of this event. They make food donating easy by offering bags of non-perishable food items at cost to customers for any dollar donation of their choosing. The food is also collected along the parade route by the Northeast High School football players who assist Lauer’s in the moving and unloading of all of the food. The food was unloaded this year at Chesapeake Christian Center and then sorted and distributed to local food pantries. We would like to thank our corporate sponsors for their continued support. Without them, this parade wouldn’t be possible. This year’s sponsors included Ace Hardware & Hearth, Bay Country Rentals, BB&T Bank, Chesapeake Bank, Cityline Business Park, Friends of Downs Park, Frank & Bill’s Auto Collision Center, Gable Signs Inc., Kurtz’s Beach, McCully-Polyniak Funderal Home, Pasadena Pawn & Gun, and Redmond’s Towing.

This year we had 45 entries in the parade including many area businesses, schools, and community organizations. The winning floats this year were: BEST BUSINESS – Angey’s Tangles, MOST ORIGINAL - Cityline Business Park, BEST PATRIOTIC –Liberty Tax Service, (a new participant this year), BEST YOUTH GROUP – Chesapeake Bay Middle School Drama Club, BESTMUSICAL/PERFORMANCE- Chesapeake High’s Vocal Ensemble, BEST COMMUNITY ENTRY – Magothy Cooperative Preschool, and BEST OVERALL - Chesapeake Christian Center. with their Frozen float and a beautiful Elsa singing. As always with a function of this size, there are many, many people to thank. First, I would like the Anne Arundel County police department and their Reserve Officers. They are always on hand to help us with our events. They play a huge part in keeping everyone safe. Also we would like to thank Anne Arundel County Recreation and Parks for helping us with the parking issues. There are many other people to thank when you have a large project like the parade.

There’s Antiques To Go for letting us use their parking lot for the reviewing stand, Chesapeake Christian Center for allowing us to use their hall for food sorting, Doug Cashmere and Scott Ellis from Ace Hardware & Hearth for putting up and taking down the road signs, helping at the park in the am with traffic control, and Doug for getting everyone out of the park along with Hayley Gable Bowerman from Gab Communiciations., Himmel’s Farm and Garden for providing decorations, Mike Agro of Cityline Business Park for getting everyone in the stadium area lined up and helping in the am with the parking issues, John Clark, Bunnie Clark, Donna Reeder, Hayley Gable Bowerman for judging, and all of those who did other tasks that day including Lisa Hart of Arundel Federal Savings Bank who coordinated the Veterans, Linda Loane of The Bank of Glen Burnie for working the park, and Dick Parrish for the sound system. We also want to thank County Executive Steve Schuh for stopping by and helping with check in. And a big thank you to our emcees who filled in at the last minute due to an illness. I called Delegate Nic Kipke the morning of the parade and he was so gracious to help us and also Jim Goetz who came to give Nic a hand. They did a great job. We want to thank Tracey Jessilonis of Country Club Automotive and Hayley Gable Bowerman of Gab Communications for helping co chair this year.

We had another successful year in our goal of Caring and Sharing. See you next year.

Parade Videos

The Parade videos are available for $15 each. Anyone can purchase them at Arundel Federal Savings Bank, Lake Shore Plaza, or members can purchase them at the January General Membership Meeting.