Avon Lake’s annual Memorial Day parade is looking for marchers, according to city program director Jacqui Hoffman.
The yearly tradition has featured various groups in the past, such as veterans, local human interest groups and high school marching bands, Hoffman said.
Now, the city is putting out a call to the community for any groups that might be interested.
“It’ll be on Memorial Day, so that’s May 29; the parade starts at 10 a.m.,” Hoffman said. “We start off from the Avon Lake High School.
“We have had, in the past, a variety of participants. We have groups from Kiwanis, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, different sports teams (and more).”
Starting from the High School, the annual parade is about a two-miles.
Outside of groups, the city has had multiple city officials march in the parade, including mayors and other high ranking Avon Lake politicians.
“We’ve had dignitaries come, anyone from our mayor and council people,” Hoffman said. “We’ve had state representatives come; we’ve had our judge in town.
“The school board (and) superintendent. We’ve had county commissioners. The list goes on and on.”
One large featured group of the parade, Hoffman said, is American Legion Post 211, 31972 Walker Road in Avon Lake.
The parade is a great honor for veterans and all those who have served, and they strive to make the post a large part of the festivities, she said.
“Honestly, you know, we want to honor our veterans,” Hoffman said. “And, we have opportunities to recognize folks in the community that have lost loved ones.
“We have it every year, so we do have a good base of folks that come out every year.”
Among the annual attendees are police officers and firefighters from Avon Lake, Hoffman said.
“It’s about a 45-minute parade, and then we end at Veteran’s Park and do a real nice ceremony there,” she said. “The color guard, the Avon Lake High School band plays. We typically have a flyover.”
The parade is only part of the town’s Memorial Day celebrations.
There will be a ceremony, complete with a speech by Mayor Gregory Zilka.
Among their other celebrations, American Legion Post 211 members will make ceramic poppy flowers to put on their lawn as a poppy field on the week of Memorial Day.
The ceramic poppies will have names of fallen veterans on them, said former Post 211 commander Mike Schrull.
They can be purchased from the Post by friends and loved ones of the fallen heroes.
The project will honor veterans and bring the American tradition of the poppy flower to the forefront in Avon Lake, Schrull said.
“About a week before (Memorial Day), the students, or whoever wants to come …, and we put these poppies into the ground in the poppy field out in front of the Post to symbolize the memory of the fallen,” he said.
Following Memorial Day, the ceramic poppies will be available to be taken home or will be stored for next year and re-planted, Schrull said.
According to the American Legion, the poppy tradition on and around Memorial Day comes from a 1915 poem titled “In Flanders Fields.”
In 1920, the American Legion sanctioned the poppy as its official flower, due to the plant’s tendency to grow on former battlefield grounds.
Schrull encouraged the public to wear a red poppy on the Friday before Memorial Day, and on Memorial Day, in honor of fallen veterans.
Hoffman said that those interested can apply to be in the parade at AvonLakeMemorialDay@AvonLake.org, or at https://forms.gle/A7y7xB373jtjEmXR6.