Jaycee's Enjoy Another Holiday Parade of Lights

Present: Roz Stein, Bert Morton, Candice Clodfelter, Mike Johnson, Rex Schadow, Tiffany Lapp, and Brian Sylvester

Springfield IL (December 7, 2024) The annual Jaycee’s Holiday Parade of Lights brought Santa Claus to Springfield and, by the looks of the entries and attendees, everyone else.  On an unusually warmer evening for December, over 51 parade entries began filing out of the Horace Mann parking lot at 5:30 p.m. to the pleasure of several thousand watchers awaiting the holiday glow of lights and thrown candy for several blocks of downtown Springfield. 

This is the second year that CORAL has strolled the parade route and the first year joined by the Fifth Street Renaissance/SARA Center outreach van.  Wrapped in multicolored, twinkling lights and running out of candy at the halfway point of the parade route, CORAL did their part to be festive.  Along the route, we heard on many occasions from those attending how great is was to see LGBTQ representation with one yelling out to us, “Finally, we’re here!”