Fourth Of July Parades: The More The Better

This Fourth of July weekend brings two parades to El Paso – one on the westside, which was yesterday, and one on the eastside, which will be held Sunday morning.

One ABC-7 viewer wanted to know: “Why don’t we just have one parade? No eastside parade, no westside parade, just one El Paso Fourth of July parade?”

ABC-7 talked to organizers and participants from both parades, and they say it’s pretty simple: The more parades, the better.

“It gets better every year and more exciting,” said one parade goer.

“You appreciate the people coming out. I’ve had people thank me,” said one veteran who attended the festivities.

American heroes and plenty of American flags…all on hand for this Fourth of July parade in west El Paso.

Parade organizer Frank Garcia, with the Del Norte Lions Club, said you’ll see a lot of this same red, white, and blue cheer at their parade Sunday morning on El Paso’s east side, and agreed – what’s Fourth of July without a parade?

“This is the people’s parade. When we started this, we started this just for the people,” said Frank.

But do the people really need two parades? “To my knowledge, it hasn’t come up,” said parade organizer Carolyn Boatright. It never occurred to her to run the idea up the flagpole.

She participated in Saturday’s parade and said more parades mean more convenience.

“It’s less of a problem for people to say, ‘oh, we’re gonna run up to the parade; we live close to the west side; we’ll run up the west side,’ and those on the eastside do the same thing.”

“Unfortunately, not everyone from the westside is gonna come way over here and vice versa; we’re not gonna go way over there,” said Frank.

And if you think splitting the proceeds is an issue, organizers say think again.

The Del Norte Lions Club parade route will end up at Album Park. You’ll see Uncle Sam, some vintage cars, and floats. And the cost to see all of it will be absolutely nothing: organizers say they don’t make a penny off of this parade.

“We never charge. We never ask for any donations until last year actually. I think we got 200 dollars,” said Frank, laughing, and added, “It cost a lot more than that to put it on.”