Brooks Secondary School grade 12 students will be featured in what is being called a grad march, which will involve a procession along Marine Avenue on June 27.
The event is scheduled between 3 and 5 pm.
Brenda Small, a member of the dry grad committee, said parents wanted to do something for graduating students in light of the cancellation of traditional graduation ceremonies due to COVID-19.
“Every kid is going to have a vehicle, they are going to be in charge of decorating their own vehicle and there will be two students per vehicle,” said Small. “The vehicle will go in front of them with their names on it and then the pair will walk behind, and so on, for 200 kids. It will be somewhat like a vehicular grand march.”
Small said organizers have all of the permitting in place and social distancing will be strictly observed. She said organizers will have to go out the night before the parade and mark big Xs all the way down Marine Avenue, eight feet apart.
“We are asking for family groups, not just a whole bunch of people like on a normal parade day,” said Small. “We just don’t want to have a mob scene so we will be very careful about keeping people socially distant and keeping everybody safe.
“This way the community can see what is happening and cheer the kids on. The kids are the stars of the show so we’ll give them a feeling that people really care about them. They are missing their parties and dinners and dances and all that fancy stuff.”
Small said there will be judges at the parade to judge the decorating. She said she’s calling on people trying to get donations for prizes for all kinds of things. It’s a really short time frame to get the event organized, said Small.
“It’s the closest to the wire fundraising I’ve ever had to do,” she said. “People have been really responsive.”
Small said many of the grads picked their walking partners years ago and have been looking forward to grad since they were little.
“All of a sudden these kids have bought all of this stuff and it’s like, bam, you have nowhere to go,” said Small.
She said graduates will have the in-school graduation ceremony on June 23 and 24 but the dry grad committee’s organizational efforts are separate from the school’s. She said the big party the dry grad committee hosts at Dwight Hall every year had to go by the wayside during the COVID -19 era, so they are going to make the best of it and do their best to make the students feel like it’s still special.
“This is the only way we could pull it off safely, have it monitored and the kids will have fun,” said Small.
Each car in the procession will have a driver and it’s up to the students to decorate it however they want. Small said there will be the opportunity for advertising. If somebody wants their advertisement on the side of the vehicle, the students will charge a fee and make it known the vehicle was sponsored.
Each car will be numbered so the judges will know who they are looking at.
There is the expectation that the vintage car club will be displaying vehicles and the hope is that the fire department will have a truck taking up the rear of the parade.
Small said the parents feel the students lost a lot this year and the dry grad committee is doing its best to provide a memorable event.
