The annual Bloomington-Normal Jaycees Holiday Parade is aiming to make participation easier by shortening the route for its 96th year.
The parade used to go from Kingsley Junior High School to Downtown Bloomington, travelling through Bloomington and Normal for two and a half miles.
Now, the parade will go from Miller Park to Downtown Bloomington, travelling only through Bloomington and cutting the route down to 1.3 miles.
The parade is set for 10 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, starting on Wood Street.
Membership Vice President of the Bloomington-Normal Jaycees Ericka Arriola said the previous route was challenging for kids and seniors during a cold time of year.
“We've gotten feedback over the years that a shorter route would be more desired,” she said.
According to Arriola, parade participation in recent years has become “stagnant,” and this change will hopefully bring in more public involvement.
Arriola also said the previous route had a "little bit of dead space" between Hovey and Division streets, "because there's not a lot of residential neighborhoods there, and it's some businesses, so we don't get a lot of engagement in that stretch there.”
“What we're hoping by moving the route is to get more community engagement, more residents involved, and then to accommodate a shorter distance for those that are walking the parade.”
Arriola said the community's reaction so far has been positive and open to the ideas of a shorter route.
This new route mimics the Labor Day Parade route, but in reverse.
“We wanted something easy to accommodate, so we thought that if we took an existing route and just reversed it and ended Downtown, that we could meet the needs of the community and not have to jump through a lot of hoops, trying to engineer a whole new route,” Arriola said.
Arriola expressed a desire to travel through downtown to end at the McLean County Museum of History’s Holidays Under the Dome, a free community event with cookies, live music, Santa and holiday season activities.
“Ideally, we want the community to gather around the square and do all of the holiday things that day too,” Arriola said.
To get the word out about the route change, Bloomington-Normal Jaycees posted on its Facebook page, changed details on their website and included the route in the organization registration form.
Bloomington-Normal Jaycees has a goal of 30 parade entries this year.
“When I joined the Jaycees in 2022, we might have had as low as 20 to 23 entries at that time, and now we've been ticking up to 30,” Arriola said.
According to Arriola, this parade is one of the Bloomington-Normal Jaycees’ most fulfilling projects during the holiday season.
“It's really fun to see all the community come together for that,” Arriola said. “It's just something we've done since the beginning of dawn.”
Parade marchers usually hand out candy, bells, coupons, information about their organization and other goodies. Arriola said that last year they had the Grinch in the parade, handing out onions.”
Arriola emphasized the opportunity to improve the parade year by year.
“There's a lot of unknowns because it's our first time doing it this way, so I'm sure that we will identify opportunities to do it better or different collaborations when we change make these changes,” Arriola said.
Nonprofit organizations can enter the parade for free.
