RITZVILLE — The Ritzville community managed to keep a community tradition going with some creative thinking. The annual Labor Day weekend parade looked a bit different this year due to the coronavirus-related restrictions, but it brought the community together just the same.

Instead of the traditional route through downtown Ritzville along Main Street, this year’s Ritzville Community Parade took an unorthodox route. The parade, held Saturday, Sept. 5, kicked off at Ritzville Grade School before zig-zagging through town and finally coming to a halt in the downtown area.

City officials, emergency responders, members of the community, and a special COVID-19-themed float made their way along the route, making a parade that lasted about twice as long as it normally would.

The event, which typically comes in conjunction with the annual Harvest Fest, was sponsored by the Ritzville Area Chamber of Commerce this year. Karen Cady, president of the chamber, said she believes everyone was happy with how the event turned out in light of the restrictions.

“COVID kind of forced the issue, you either cancel because you end up with tons of people down on Main Street or figure out a different way of doing it,” Cady said.

The idea for the community parade only came up a few weeks in advance as city officials tried to decide if they needed to cancel the event this year. Teachers in the local school district had done a similar parade earlier in the year in support of their students. Cady said this provided a blueprint.

With so much else falling to the wayside due to restrictions on events, she said it was important to provide something for the community. COVID-19 has been hard on a lot of people in the community, and Cady said they’re looking at different ideas for holding other annual events to offer some support.

One example is the annual Halloween trick-or-treat event, which won’t be possible under the current guidelines.

“That’s one of the areas where you end up potentially crossing the barriers, social distancing problems and stuff like that,” Cady. “We’re looking at other things we can do, because we still want to show the community that we’re still here and we support the community as a whole, not just the businesses.”

Katelin Davidson, with KD Consulting LLC, was hired by the chamber to help organize, promote and document the event this year. She said it was great to offer something “closer to normal” in the current situation.

“We had a great response from our community, and throughout our town,” Davidson said. “Everyone could just come out of their house and wave, or cheer, and just have a good time. As a fundraiser for the chamber, they sold ice cream and cold treats for people on the parade route.”

Davidson said they saw a little bit of everything as far as responses from the community. Some locals were on chairs set up in their yards waiting for the parade to come by, while others waited by a window before popping out to the porch when the procession passed by. With the route taking nearly twice as long this year, she said people had plenty of time to come out and share in the event.

In addition to the first responders and local politicians making their way by, she said there was a good variety of local people who signed up to be a part of the event as well.

“I think that really helped in the response because people were seeing faces they recognized, they were seeing their friends,” Davidson said. “I think that just brought a lot of optimism, enthusiasm and positivity for our community, and I think that was kind of needed.”

John Marshall and his wife, Janis Marshall, have been members of the Ritzville Festivals Association for about 20 years now, with Janis serving as the group’s president currently. Marshall said Debi Balfe, a member of the organization, was key in helping get the float together quickly for the parade this year.

“Debi took it upon herself to go ahead and quickly put together a float on our regular float chassis that we usually have and girls ride on every year after being in the Distinguished Young Women program,” Marshall said.

With some help from a few friends, he said Balfe was able to put together the COVID-themed float, complete with giant rolls of toilet paper, COVID-19 germs, and a giant mask on the front of the float. Marshall said he believes she did a great job getting the float together.

He said it was great for so many people to get a chance to be a part of the celebration this year, something he believes a lot of people were looking for.

Casey McCarthy can be reached at cmccarthy@columbiabasinherald.com.