4th of July Parade
The Village Board of Trustees and staff are disappointed to share the news our 4th of July Parade has been canceled due to a shortage of participants. In years past, the Village of South Elgin 4th of July Parade attracted 60-80 participating businesses and organizations. This year we have 28 participants signed-up, and this is simply not enough to hold a parade of reasonable length. While an abbreviated parade is one issue, shutting down nearly a mile of Spring Street, moving large Public Works vehicles to block intersections and providing heightened law enforcement and security creates additional challenges for a 10-15 minute event.
Please know this is not a decision made lightly or without effort:
- Parks & Rec staff mailed more than 500 postcard invitations to ALL South Elgin businesses and organizations to join the parade.
- Since March 6, the Village posted a call for participants 8 different times on Facebook (generating 15,300 total views - per inset graphic below).
- The same parade participant request appeared in the Spring and Summer issues of Village Light, the digital Parks & Rec Summer Event Guide and has been available at southelgin.com/july4 for the past three months.
- Parks & Rec staff emailed and invited (four separate times) all previous parade participants from the past three parades.
We are grateful to the 28 who registered, and we do not blame those who’ve opted out. We’ve heard from many businesses that staff shortages have altered their plans and they prefer to give their staff a full holiday. Others have cited safety concerns due to tragedies like the one in Highland Park last year. Others have simply made new holiday weekend plans.
The Village will continue to host a wide-array of events this summer, including concerts, cruise nights, movie nights, National Night Out, Tuna Kahuna, Unplug Illinois and more. Learn more at southelgin.com/pantonmillpark. We hope you have a happy and safe 4th of July, and look forward to seeing you throughout the months ahead. Thank you.