A dinosaur head lay dismembered on the floor as kids dipped newspaper strips in plaster, contorted chicken wire and sawed wooden boards under the supervision of some College students. The chaos taking place in a back room of the dilapidated ice skating rink wasn’t exactly chaos; just one of the many parts of the Big Parade project revving into full gear as May 4th approaches.
“We want as many people with as many talents and interests as possible to represent in May,” senior Abigail Morgan, one of the parade’s many organizers, said. The parade’s diffuse leadership is intentional and responsibilities are divvied up among the interested participants. This approach has posed some difficulties, however, in keeping the parade organized.
“[A major challenge] is keeping track of what’s going on…we are working each week to get more and more different kinds of groups involved but each focus area takes longer than we anticipated,” senior Zach Moser said.
Although not all of the groups involved are partnered with children — for example, the OMEN Morris Dancers are performing — many of the organizations involved are inseparable from Oberlin’s children, which works just fine for those involved.
“I like working with painting and papier maché. I like the College students that helped us,” Boys and Girls Club member Kyla Miller, age nine, said.
The cheery young float-makers were participating in a series of workshops being held the week of Oberlin public schools’ spring break. Other floats that are in the works include a chicken head, a giraffe, a nose with fingers picking it and a panther. But don’t worry if you missed out on the fun because every Saturday until the parade there will be workshops in the old ice skating rink students are encouraged to attend.
“College students and kids from the community will be building floats, puppets, instruments for the parade. Live music, and food will be provided,” sophomore parade participant Page Neal said. “We’d like to get as much student participation as possible so that the parade represents as many different student groups, organizations and individuals as possible.”
After the parade, a follow-up carnival will be held in Tappan Square featuring more of the festivities, food, live music, dance performances, a dress-up-your-pet contest, local merchants, a moon-walk, sheep, sidewalk art and a garage sale among much more.
“I don’t know what [the parade] is going to be like, but most parades I’ve been to are really fun,” seven year-old Cyrus Newlin said.
Other groups involved are as varied as the Oberlin Chess Club, Oberlin Skilled Hands in Training (Jugglers), Oberlin Steel, Unitarian Universalists Fellowship, Oberlin Rhythms of Resistance and many others. Oberlin town organizations like the Eastwood Elementary Parent-Teacher Organization and the Chamber of Commerce are also involved.
“It’s a pretty great time for people to get together,” said senior Oberlin Design Initiative Co-Director Morgan Williams, who has been facilitating the parade’s connections with the Chamber of Commerce and offering ODI’s network of town connections to benefit the parade.
Another project unfurling around the parade is led by the Quilting Club, who are preparing a quilted banner that will be featured in the parade.
“Quilting is intrinsically and historically a community undertaking [and] is therefore a natural way to get students active in the community,” sophomore Diana Fleisher, who came up with the idea for an Oberlin community quilt, said.
Interested students can contribute their own squares, assist children in making their own, or help piece it all together.
“I think it’s kinda cool when people step out and do something about a parade. Parades are excellent,” one 12-year-old participant said.

For more information, contact zachary.moser@oberlin.edu.