Elkhart County 4-H Fair Parade steps off Sunday
Jul. 23—GOSHEN — There's just one day left until the Elkhart County 4-H Fair's annual parade and Grace Community Church is hard at work putting the finishing touches on their float, one of as many as 100 expected to march the streets of downtown Goshen in celebration of the annual fair every year.
"After so much time not being able to touch people, being quarantined, to be able to high five someone or give them a handshake along the way ... we're really looking forward to it," said Grace Community Church Senior Pastor Jim Brown.
Their float is carnival ride-themed, with a Ferris wheel and merry-go-round and even an interactive beanbag toss.
"It kind of goes with the theme (of this year's fair) 'Fun At Every Turn.'"
With a new fair theme every year, the work that goes into creating a new float every year — for GCC almost 20 years' worth of them — is no small task.
"We have a lot of guys and gals in our church that love to construct," Brown said. "Holy cow, our community can build anything. ... It's a fun time."
GCC's participation in the parade ranges from 75 to 150 people any given year.
"We get to walk through all the streets of Goshen," he added. "We play a worship song to worship our God and it's fun. We look forward to it, our people love it, and the people that you get to meet along the way, to shake a hand, to say hello, give them a high five, give them a gift or something. How often do you get to meet thousands and thousands of people in a short period of time and say, 'We're glad to see you'?
For the church, participation in the parade is based on a motive to spread God's love through the community.
"We want to be a face of the community and let them know that we love them and we're here for them if there's anything they need," Brown said. "I think it's a great idea to bring people together to have some fun and to bring some enjoyment to our world and for us to be a visible testimony for Jesus. The primary reason we're doing it is to reflect Jesus to our community and let people know we're a church that loves our community and loves Jesus."
Parade director Boyd Smith said groups from every corner of the community come out to join in the parade, with hundreds of vehicles, and thousands of people joining in, an over 10,000 watching from the streets and sidewalks
"Everybody just comes and says, 'This is what I want to share with my neighbors' and that's pretty cool," Smith said. "It's just community working together. It's such a beautiful thing to see everybody come out and you get to see the kid's faces."
Grace Community Church will be passing out teddy bears to children on the parade path, and other entities will pass out candy and other goodies and gifts.
Aside from both Goshen and Fairfield marching bands, new this year, the parade has also procured three local bands to join in the amusement.
"Music always lifts our spirits," Smith said.
The Broken Lifters will perform at the corner of Main Street and Madison Street, Lalo Cura will perform near Goshen High School and Steel Cowboy will also perform at a location as of press time undermined.
Per Smith, it's requested that parade participants and goers not park in the Linway Plaza parking lot as it is the staging area for the parade. The parade steps off at 1:30 p.m.
Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2065.
