I've been in contact with the people that put on the pungo strawberry festival parade and it supports a good cause. They are looking for about 5 cars to lead the parade on may 24. They try to work with the Memorial day theme, so bring a flag or something like that, if you have one. They start lining up between 8-9 am. I think this would be good advertising for getting the club name out there, especially on that side of the water. Please post up if you are intrested in doing this, so I can get back with them.
This is a copy of an email I recieved from them:
Dear John, Yes it would truly mean a lot to us!!! WE are Explorer Post 800 Jr Emt, group. Which means we taking students and train with First responder skills!! CPR , BACK BOARDING, C-Spine, bleeding control.. scene safety.. EVERYTHING WE CAN TEACH THEM. It's an age where they can learn SO fast and easy and yet under 18yrs old and cannot join the city's free program to become certified. Rather than turn them off we turn them on.. and keep that wonderful interest going!! We do events like the finish line of Marathons at the beach.. where they can be right with EMT and really help. All of our hours are recorded with the city of VB as volunteer hours, which can help them with college apps and future job apps. We help create, and mold the future providers for our VBEMS program, which is the LARGEST VOLUNTEER RESCUE SQUAD IS THE WORLD ! We have had 9 students go on and get fully certified as EMT_B, 2 going for Paramedic and 1 a VB Fire Fighter.. all at ages 19 to 20 yrs old! Because we keep that interest going. By the time they get to be 18yrs old and can join the VBEMS class our Explorers know all the basics like second nature and can concentrate on the harder part of the program. Recipe for success! What we teach also makes them Think twice, hopefully before making some "bad" choices while getting out in the world, because they learn what CAN GO WRONG! Ok, enough of who we are...What we are doing MAY 24th, Sat is LEADING, right after the flag and PD.. The Strawberry Fest Parade!! It has taken us many years to get to the FRONT and are very Proud of it! The issue is.. having some nice looking cars to go with us! We used to have the use of a golf cart which the city is now needing for patient and the EMTs on duty for the event. Since ours is a Teen age group I thought nice looking cars.. would be perfect!! We are a Scouting group, which is what Exploring is.. ages 14yrs to 21yrs officially. I would LOVE to speak with you ... this hold thing is my "LOVE" child and I want to see it look great!! We are an nonprofit and are also trying to write letters and talk to groups seeking support that might help us get uniforms. We have a Face Book page Explorer Post 800 Jr EMT, we hope to get a web page. Please do consider joining with us !!
This year we are estimating attendance of 120,000 over the two day event. Not only does the Festival have all the strawberries you can eat offered in over 50 different ways, activities include a pie eating contest, strawberry bake-off, continuous entertainment on three stages, a parade, one of the largest carnivals on the east coast, a multi-million dollar military display, pig races, youth art show, and arts and craft booths.
This Festival has grown from nearly 50,000 in 1983 to its present size of over 120,000. The Festival is a 501 3 ©) non-profit organization and prides itself on its ability to give to the community. All proceeds from our Festival are donated to non-profit community and service organizations. We are proud to have returned over $600,000 to the community thus far and this does not include money raised by community groups on site.