Doing Good Things: Winston-Salem’s Holiday Parade Evolution

By Mackenzie Cates-Allen, Winston-Salem Ambassadors President

At Winston-Salem Ambassadors, our mission is to make everyone fall in love with Winston-Salem, help you find what you need from here, and spread the love of Winston-Salem with others. So, when the Winston-Salem Jaycees, of which I was a member, closed, I was honored to be able to offer to take up the mantle of the beloved Holiday Parade. They wanted someone who would love it, take care of it, and keep it accessible. My amazing board members and I said, “We’ve got you.”

This year the Holiday Parade will be on December 2nd at 5 pm, followed by the Tree Lighting at Corpening Plaza, held by the City of Winston-Salem.

While we will of course celebrate the most widely known and celebrated holiday, Christmas, (including having Santa), you might notice a few additions and changes this year. The logo alone hopefully illustrates our celebration of the wide diversity we have in our great city of over a quarter of a million people.

The Winston-Salem Ambassadors want to stress that we are a welcoming organization, and the focus on including Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Yule in our Parade is a new focus this year. We reached out specifically to local Temples and Mosques, and made an extra effort to make sure our 2sLGBTQIA+ community felt extra welcomed. No organization who is blatantly discriminatory is allowed entrance into the Parade. We even had a question this year on our Interest Form to ensure that.

The fun part is, you can still expect marching bands, the Re/Max Balloon, floats, dogs, and horses, law enforcement vehicles of all kinds, happily decorated vehicles and smiling people, and lots of fun and music.

This year we will have announcers from WFMY, Tanya Rivera and Hannah Jeffries, which should bring an extra element of cohesion and interest, and fun! We will also have a Ribbon Cutting to kick off the parade, with elected officials, our Grand Marshal, Burgess Jenkins, and Winston-Salem Dash’s very own Bolt.

We hope that you will join us on December 2nd at 5pm! For more details on the Winston-Salem Holiday parade visit wsparade.com.

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