For South Side Irish St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee Co-Chair Jeannie Kovak, Sunday is about more than the parade.
More Top Picks Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro
“It’s a place that families come together,” the Beverly resident said. “There’s an aura around the parade. People are getting ready — you feel the buzz in the neighborhood.”
What began in 1979 with 17 children marching on two blocks of Washtenaw and Talman streets has become a South Side staple and a way for Southlanders to flaunt Irish pride on Western Avenue.
Sunday the parade returns with more than 100 parade entrants and an anticipated 200,000 spectators, officials said. The spectacle includes 13 bagpipe and marching bands, four Irish dance schools, the United States Air Force Honor Guard Marching Unit, live Irish music on floats and a six-foot-tall Haribo Gummy Bear.
“We’re looking forward to getting back out there,” Kovak said. “We could use 10 more degrees on the weather, but we’ve been through worse.”
The parade’s Grand Marshall is the Les Turner ALS Foundation, which provides resources to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis patients and their families.
Beverly resident Meg Rooney and her family are marching with the foundation. Last year, her husband John Rooney — a longtime reporter with the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin who broke the story of Chicagoland Tylenol poisoning deaths in 1982 for the City News Bureau of Chicago — succumbed to the disease. His mother and aunt also died from the disease.
“Our whole family will be there to be part of the parade,” Rooney said. “This is our opportunity to give back to the foundation. Our main goal after John’s passing form ALS has been to raise awareness for the disease and participate in events with the foundation, which was there every step of the way.”
Representatives of the special honoree of the parade, Christmas Without Cancer, plan to hand out shirts and candy from their festive float with a Santa Claus. The nonprofit organization identifies Chicagoland families stricken with cancer and provides gifts and basic necessities, giving five or six families each year with a full Christmas and helping others year round with rent, gas, groceries and mortgage payments, said Christmas Without Cancer Event Planner Michael Chappetto
“We’re honored and super excited to be part of the parade,” Chappetto said. “Continued exposure to the Chicagoland area is a wonderful thing.”
Since being re-established as a family friendly event in 2012, the parade has grown, Kovak said.
The parade used to bring crowds of 400,000 and busloads of people from bars and colleges who had nowhere to go but out into the neighborhood, she said. Over time, the drinking and commotion became too much for residents. The parade now hires its own private security that strictly enforce zero tolerance rules and the city ordinance on public drinking.
“It was best to stop it and recreate a model that was beneficial to everybody,” she said. “The community has embraced the parade and the kids are back.”
Participants in the 2016 Rose of Tralee Irish beauty pageant are traveling from as far as Australia New Zealand to march in the parade. The winner of last year’s contest, Maggie McEldowney, doesn’t have to travel far: She lives in Beverly.
This year’s South Side Irish parade queen, Shannon Zofkie, of Beverly, an experienced Irish fiddler and dancer, also will take part in the parade.
Leo High School in Auburn Gresham will be joining the parade to celebrate the school’s 90th anniversary.
At 11:45 a.m., the Les Turner ALS Foundation and Christmas Without Cancer will cut the ribbon to kick off the parade at 103rd & Western Ave. At 12 p.m., the parade steps off from 103rd & Western Ave. and travels south to 115th Street. The parade will last about two hours, officials said.
There will be no street parking on the east side of Artesian from 103rd to 111th beginning at 8 a.m. and ending at 3 p.m, officials said. No parking will be allowed on Western Avenue from 99th to 119th beginning at 6 a.m. Expect vehicle traffic to be restricted on side streets surrounding Western Avenue from approximately 9 a.m. to until 3 p.m.
@MatthewMcCall_
More Top Picks Best Roasting Pans For Holiday Dinners