I know it’s August, but it’s taken me a while to put words to paper (or screen, as you’d have it).

In past years, I’d see friends post pictures of their neighborhood bike parade on 4th of July, and kept wishing our neighborhood did something similar. As happens in life, sometimes YOU have to be the one to make things happen rather than waiting to be invited. SO, this year I told the boys we were organizing our own neighborhood bike parade, and they were all for it!

Quick Pre-Cap:

1. Plan time, route, and post-parade activity
2. Create a flyer
3. Distribute flyer
4. Check RSVP’s obsessively
5. Purchase decor items or ice cream
6. Pre-set up for grand finale
7. Have fun!

1. Plan time, route, and post-parade activity

I started by figuring out the timing and the parade route. We have an actual parade sponsored by the city every year around 10:00 a.m., so I didn’t want it to conflict with that, and figured most people have BBQ’s later in the evening, so I settled on a 2:00 p.m. meet up time, with a 2:30 p.m. take off time. I thought it would be nice to provide some time for kids to decorate their bikes together and maybe pool resources together for decorations. Figuring out the parade route was tricky: being our inaugural year, I didn’t want to make it too long. The starting point was also tricky: I wanted to make sure we could meet up somewhere safe, where cars driving by wouldn’t be an issue. We have a park near by, but we’d have to cross through a couple intersections and it was generally outside of the range I was hoping to stay within. There’s a cul-de-sac at the top of a hill that I thought could work, but wasn’t sure that having a bunch of kids barreling down a pretty steep street at the get-go was a great idea either. Jeff suggested a green belt area near out house, which was a perfect gathering location.

I also wanted something at the end of the parade so people could hang out for a little bit. Again, being an inaugural year I didn’t want to assume that complete strangers would want to spend the rest of the evening together, so instead of doing a potluck BBQ, I thought ice cream would be a safe alternative.

2. Create a flyer

I did’t want to post on social media, so I went old-school and created half sheet flyers, printed, copied, and cut them in half. The flyer itself had pretty basic information, but I used a QR code to link it to the Google Form that had all the details. The Google Form collected basic information to get a sense of how many people would show up, and also for neighbors to pitch in with decorations and ice cream. It also gave details on the route, in case neighbors wanted to come out and cheer.

So, really, an old school but new school flyer!

3. Distribute flyer

The next step was getting the word out. I knew we could tell our immediate neighbors by word of mouth, but I really wanted this to be a full neighborhood event, including those that don’t live near us and those that we’ve never talked to or seen before. I know the neighborhood app is pretty popular, but I also didn’t want to post something online and have people from beyond our neighborhood. Not because I don’t like to include others (I’m usually a “the more the merrier” type), but because I really wanted this to be an opportunity where we got to meet and interact with the people that live around us.

The whole family helped put the fliers in each mailbox around our neighborhood. Jeff actually attached one of the boys’ lunch bags to a bike, and put the fliers in the lunch box so they could bike around and put the fliers in the mailboxes. I walked around with Josh at one point and had a system where he rode his razor ahead and opened the mailbox for me to walk up and put the flyer in and close the mailbox.

4. Check RSVP’s obsessively

Ok, maybe obsessively isn’t healthy, but I’ll be honest with you – I was excited and nervous to see how this little experiment would go. It was pretty great to get a notification every time someone filled out the Google form. It was nice to see that almost everyone that RSVP’d also signed up to contribute something, so I figured we would have plenty of decorations and ice cream.

5. Purchase decor items and/or ice cream

You really can’t go wrong with the Dollar Tree for these types of decorations. I bought a bunch of random things, including themed ribbon, and they all came in handy. I made sure to take twist ties, scissors, and tape to the meet up.

6. Pre-set up for the grand finale

I wanted to have as much take care of as possible so that when we finished our parade everything was ready to go. We set up our canopy on the driveway for shade, and a couple folding tables to set out the ice cream and decorations. A neighbor brought over some really cool inflatable trays so we could put ice and the ice cream in them, and that worked out really well. I think next year I’ll skip the parade or cut home a little early just so I can set everything out before the melee arrives.

7. Have fun!

It was so great to see the community come together and have a great time! The decorating together before departure worked really well, but I think it could be improved a bit next year. It was a bit much to keep track of where the tape and scissors were, and the decorations were scattered among bags and baskets on the grass (some apparently got placed over dog poop…that was fun). Next year I might set up a table there to set things out, and have multiple sets of scissors and tape.

BUT, I loved seeing the pride each kid took in preparing their bike or razor, and how they got to pick and choose what they wanted to decorate it with. Totally worth it!

Once we took off, these kids TOOK. OFF. Being that it was our first parade, I think they confused “parade” with “race” and really took off pretty fast. We’ve discussed next year having a couple parents at the front to keep the pace, and give it more of a parade feel for the neighbors.

Once the biking was done, it was ice cream time! We had popsicles but also ice cream buckets and every topping imaginable. I was very thankful a couple moms stepped up to be designated ice scream scoopers – I think this will be something we plan for next time, and maybe have one table for ice cream scooping, and another for toppings, just to move the line along a little more quickly. I also just remembered this idea that I first saw on Pinterest about pre-scooping on muffin tins – could work!

I think next year we might go big and throw in a potluck…but for this year, it was great!