For The Rose Parade Floats To Draw A Crowd, They First Draw In Volunteers

Volunteers apply fine details to the float elements.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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The floats that enthrall visitors at the Rose Parade don’t just have professionals working on them. Every year, thousands of volunteers spend hours painstakingly gluing seeds, fruits, vegetables, dried florals and, of course, fresh flowers on the floats.

At a warehouse in Irwindale, around 250 of them were hard at work on Boxing Day morning preparing for the New Year’s Day event.

One of the volunteers is Victoria Boyd. For the last 36 years on Christmas Day, she has boarded a flight from Illinois to Los Angeles. She volunteers her time to decorate floats for Pasadena’s 135th Rose Parade. Over the years, Boyd has made friends with other volunteers from places like Maine, Louisiana and Michigan, keeping in touch with them on Facebook.

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Victoria Boyd is volunteering to decorate the Rose Parade floats for the 36th year.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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“I keep coming back because I think I'm addicted. It's an art form. It's pleasurable,” Boyd said. “It's meeting all the people.”

This year, she’s helping decorate the float for the nonprofit One Legacy. It celebrates the culture of the Hopi tribe, native to the American Southwest. In her first year volunteering, she worked on a ‘Beam Me Up Scotty’ float, where two little martians came out of the spaceship during the parade.

Dawn Hamilton is returning as a volunteer for her 31st year.

“I started when I was a freshman in high school,,” she said. “I don't do art for my job and so this is my one time a year I get to come out and use my art degree and I just love doing art and so this is like a giant paint by number, decorate by number and color.”

Dawn and Dakota Hamilton with the hummingbird they are decorating for the Rose Parade.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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Hamilton took a bus from Torrance with her son Dakota to the Fiesta Parade Floats warehouse in Irwindale, where volunteers were decorating five floats that will be a part of the parade.

Dakota Hamilton said every year his mother would leave home to go work on the floats for a week. When he turned 13, he decided to join her. While his mother helps with the more intricate art projects, he helps out by running around and getting people supplies.

Working on the floats, he said, has helped him realize just how much time, work and “a lot of patience” goes into building them.

A volunteer works on an element that will be included on a float to celebrate the Hopi nation.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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Twelve-year-old Destiny Peña is volunteering for the first time with members of her Girl Scout troop. She patiently added crushed parsley to the stem of a giant flower.

“It's fun. I like doing art stuff. I'm pretty good at drawing, so I'm interested in that kind of stuff,” she said.

Erica Vazquez drove 30 minutes from Long Beach for two reasons. “What brought me in this morning is my bucket list for wanting to help decorate the floats so it's always been, something I've wanted to do since I was younger,” she said. “So I came with my daughter, who's here to earn some service hours.”

The Mardi Gras themed float coming to life.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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Vazquez said she has cut up “thousands” of safflowers that will be used on the Louisiana Office of Tourism Mardi Gras-themed float.

“My goal is to obviously get over there on that float and help glue some of this stuff on there,” she said. “But I think just the experience is great.”