Thank you Sumner floaters!

Once again our float crew did an outstanding job on the Sumner community float. I have to give a special thanks to our local floral designer extraordinaire April VanLierop, who directed volunteers with the last-minute floral float frosting which cinched Sumner’s third consecutive win of the parade’s Festival Award for best use of flowers.

If you didn’t get to see the parade in person, or if you want to see your child or family friends marching in the parade again, it will be rebroadcast on channels 12 and 21 throughout this week on TV Tacoma. Visit our Web site at www.sumnerdowntown.com for a schedule of play times.

I have a couple of great stories I want to share with you this week about our volunteers and community. The night before the parade I stopped in to take some pictures of the float. After being heckled by a couple of my favorite volunteers and checking on some of the other float crews, I realized there was a new volunteer I hadn’t seen or talked to before. Her name was Robyn Colbert and she had read one of our local newspaper articles about needing people for last-minute help. So she drove to Tacoma along with her 6-year-old son, Linkin, and worked all day to help with the finishing touches. She’s new to Sumner and thought working on the float sounded like fun and wanted to meet folks in the community.

Providing opportunities for new residents to get involved and meet people is just plain fun. And if the project promotes Sumner, well, that’s a two-fer that’s sure to make me smile.

Here in town we had another 20 local parade ambassadors who were willing to give their time to meet with our police department two hours before the parade to get their “marching” orders and partner assignments. To all of you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

And finally, a little bird told me there was a family who watched the parade from the back of their pickup truck parked near the Ryan House. It seems every time an out-of-town unit went by in the parade, they held up signs and yelled out “Thanks for coming to Sumner.”

I don’t know who you are, but I’d have stopped to give you a hug if I’d seen you in person on parade day.

Thanks for understanding how much effort and cost goes into each parade unit that comes through our town and how much it adds to Sumner’s own special sense of community to have all those units travel down Main Street.

I really, really mean it when I say I love my job here in Sumner. Where else can you see so many great people come together and give back to the community because they truly value it?

So to Ben, April, Rick, Jon, Joanne, Ted, Jan, Jackie, Chris, Petra, Gary, Ron, Sandi, Robyn and Linkin, the Garden Market crew and the rest of the gang who helped out, thanks for giving Sumner a heart that attracts new people to join the fun and compels longtime residents to make everyone feel welcome.

You’re the real reason why so many people like to spend their time in Sumner.