Welcome to the 18th Annual
Northville Community Foundation
Annual Independence Day Parade,
“It's aGrandOl’ Flag.”
This year, the parade preparation is
being carefully and scrupulouslymoni-
tored, preparing for a huge change
next year that organizers hope will be
seamless. Members of the Northville
Chamber of Commerce staff have been
observing and helping organize and
attend to themyriad of details involved
in bringing the parade to the streets of
downtown Northville this year,
preparing for 2019 when the event will
be the responsibility of the Northville
Chamber of Commerce.
“They (Foundation officials) came to
us with a proposal and naturally, we
were happy to do it,” explained Jodi
Humphries, executive director of the
chamber of commerce. “The founda-
tion directors want to focus more
efforts on Maybury Farm and the
parade was an event they felt wemight
be interested inhandling.”
Humphries noted that while the
chamber annually organizes 10 major
events in the city including the con-
certs in the park, the Victorian Parade,
the Christmas holiday and Halloween
parades along with the Farmers
Market, it was “natural” for the founda-
tion to look to themto take on the 4thof
JulyParade.
Humphries was not discounting the
incredible amount of work that is
required to organize and present an
event of the magnitude of the home-
town parade celebrating the birth of
our nation that brings 20,000 cheering
people to downtown.
“This year is kind of our intern-
ship,” she said. “When the foundation
people approached us, we knew there
would be a learning curve, but we are
hoping for a smooth transition.”
Page 1
Leading the parade
Chamber officials prepare to manage traditional celebration
See
Change,
page 2
The foundation directors
want to focus more efforts
on Maybury Farm and the
parade was an event they
felt we might be
interested in handling.
”
