Chesapeake Rotary Christmas Parade

The Chesapeake Christmas Parade began over 40 years ago with the Great Bridge Jaycee’s. As their ranks have dwindled, the work of putting on the two hour parade has fallen to a smaller group of able individuals. In 2010, two of our club’s Past President’s, Ray Conner and David Hanson, began working with the City Manager, and the remaining Jaycee’s to take over as lead Sponsor and Organizer of the annual event.

The name officially changed to the Chesapeake Rotary Christmas Parade for 2010 and a new logo including our Rotary Wheel was created. Our club immediately formed a committee, currently chaired by Rotarian’s Dianne Copeland Adcock and Anthony Draper, to organize this event. Over 100 applications for floats, bands, and acts were reviewed and 65 selected for the parade.

On December 4th, 2010 the inaugural Chesapeake Rotary Christmas Parade marched through downtown Great Bridge in front of over 5,000 residents and was even blessed with a little snow. Our club received newspaper, radio, and TV press for taking over the event. It was broadcast live on WCTV, and rebroadcast almost daily through the remainder of the holiday season on COX 48. It is still available online at WCTV’s website.

We adopted this event as a fund raiser for our Chesapeake Rotary Foundation, and plan to increase it’s exposure, sponsorship, and profitability in the coming years with sponsorships, vendors, and a refined process.

In 2013, Chesapeake Regional Medical Center decided that this was a community event they felt strongly about supporting. We are grateful for their partnership as well as all the sponsorships we receive to allow every high school marching band in the Chesapeake Public Schools to participate.
- See more at: http://www.chesapeakechristmasparade.com