The Strathmore Stampede is coming up, and that means its iconic kick-off parade is currently being planned.

The Strathmore Wheatland Chamber of Commerce (SWCC) is busy filling spots and planning the route of its annual parade through Strathmore.

Past chair of the SWCC Hayley Poirier explains how the community can get involved with this Strathmore Staple.

“We would love to have as many people as possible. That would be local people, anybody in Wheatland County is welcome to join the parade and register, as well as businesses and nonprofits. You can go to the SWCC website. There's a link right there that'll take you into registration. Or you can also find it at the strathmore.ca website and all of the information is right there for you." 
 
Poirier also spoke about why she loves to see the communities involved in the parade and the Stampede.
 
“I love the idea that all of our residents get to go out and celebrate.  I always feel like the parade is the start of the Stampede. We go down, we enjoy the parade and then we start heading up towards the grounds for all of the other festivities going on. So I think that's my favourite aspect. It feels like the kickoff to Stampede.”
 
This year expect to see Don Good, a former Poppy Chairman at the Legion, as your parade marshal. He said he's excited to be at the head of the parade and see his family.
 
“Seeing all my kids that will be there. They're all married and got kids of their own. So I've got grandchildren and they say they're all coming. it's a good experience for the whole town to see the parade like that. I'm even excited about seeing it myself.”
 
The way we celebrate has certainly changed over the last two years and with a return to ‘normalcy,’ Poirier illustrates what's different about this year's parade as compared to last.
 
“What I noticed is that people were probably a little more respectful of each other's distance. 
There was some more separation of people. There might have been a little less attendance as well, and I think that was because people weren't too sure. Is there a parade? Isn't there a parade? We had fewer floats last year as well. That's because businesses that had not started back up again, because of the different changes in the world and who was able to have their business open and not. So now that we are full-on back to business, back to events, I think we will have many more participants out, as well as the audience.”
 
Poirier also wanted to express what organizing this parade means to the SWCC.
 
“The Strathmore Wheatland Chamber of Commerce is honoured to be organizing and putting on the Strathmore parade this year. We are teaming up with the town of Strathmore as well as the Strathmore Stampede and we want to pay it homage and do it right for them.”

With the hard work being put forward by the SWCC and a focus on rebuilding community engagement after two years of isolation, this year's Stampede Parade and the Strathmore Stampede itself will be a memorable event for locals and visitors.

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