The 123rd Tournament of the Roses Parade has been an American New Years tradition since 1890. This year’s theme is “Just Imagine…” and the Rose Parade will feature 43 floats with exotic flowers and seeds, 21 bands, and approximately 400 horses. The manpower put into decorating every single float is enormous. Volunteer opportunities were provided to many clubs this year to help make this American tradition possible. Our very own Fountain Valley Key Club and KIWIN’S had a chance to contribute to this spectacular event. Whether it was cutting flowers, gluing plant material onto the floats, or taking out the trash, there was always work to be done.
The storage room had various types of flowers and seeds in numerous quantities and colors. Among the most used on floats were the silver leaves and the carnations. The silver leaves has a very strenuous process to it. It was pealed, cut, then glued onto the floats and it wasn’t just a few leaves; almost about 1000 of these leaves were prepared for the floats. Carnations, although beautiful, were cut by the petal and used as flakes on the floats. Roses were cut drastically shorter at the stem and toothpicks were inserted into them. After this, they were poked into the floats at the color-coded areas. These were but the few types of plants used for the floats.
One of the hardest jobs was preparing platforms of flowers for the floats. This job is usually done by an assembly line method. One person would cut the thorns off the roses and cuts the stem shorter. The other would stick their hands in ice-cold water for beakers to insert the roses’ stems to keep them moisturized until after the parade. And the last person inserts the beaker into the styrofoam platform. Each platform can range from 225 to 1000 roses. That’s a lot!
Nevertheless, on January 2nd, whether you are out on Colorado Boulevard or at home on our couch watching the Rose Parade on KTLA 5, just remember that hundreds of people worked to keep this tradition thriving in America, specifically Southern California. Gallons and gallons of glue is used to stick seeds, petal flakes, flowers, plant material, and berries onto these floats. Brushes are always high in demand. The supply of flowers is limitless. The hours and energy put into each float is infinite. Be thankful for this when reflecting on the the 2011 year and look forward to the new year! Happy New Years!
