The annual Memorial Day Parade held in downtown Bradford will not be taking place in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision was released by the parade committee on Monday as Pennsylvania’s statewide stay-at-home order remains in effect through at least the end of April. Memorial Day falls on Monday, May 25 this year.
“The annual Memorial Day Parade and services will be canceled this year due to the ongoing pandemic. Our annual parade draws a huge crowd in Bradford every year, and it is not an easy thing to overlook this year,” committee member and Frances Sherman VFW Auxiliary member Val Meacham said. “The services in Veteran’s Square are a meaningful and honorable salute to our departed. Having been ‘on deck’ with helping to plan and planning the parade for approximately 15 years, this makes my heart heavy not to be doing it this year.”
Meacham added that both VFW Post 212 Commander Steve Kloss and American Legion Post 108 Commander Bob Witchen were in agreement with the decision to cancel the event.
Witchen noted that the Legion has been unable to meet and hold scheduled elections during this time, and that the only activity it’s been able to hold in recent weeks is a Friday-night fish fry, and even that is takeout-only.
And with no clear path forward on when things in Pennsylvania can reopen, Witchen said the committee was left with no real choice but to cancel.
“We don’t know how long (the shutdown) will last, but it will until at least the end of this month. We don’t know how much longer after that,” he noted. “We haven’t been notified any further than that, but I’m pretty darn sure it’s going to be a longer period of time than the end of the month.”
Witchen said the organizations don’t want to endanger anyone by asking people to gather.
“We know we can’t have a whole festival downtown like we normally do.”
Though the committee is saddened to be unable to host the parade, Meacham asks that community members still do their part to honor fallen veterans.
“I ask the community to honor Memorial Day by flying their flags high,” she said. “In such murky, unprecedented waters we are in at the present, it is the least we can do to honor those who have gone before us.”
Plans for the parade were still in the beginning stages, according to Witchen.
“We really hadn’t made any (efforts in organizing) yet,” he said. “It doesn’t take an awful much. We just always have a celebration downtown, and we just decided it’s in the best interest of the people involved — ourselves included — that we shouldn’t (have the parade). It’s always been a standard thing that on Memorial Day, we honor the veterans, but we just can’t do it this year, and we feel really, really badly about it.”
Still, the Legion has been doing its part to take care of local veterans. The organization has been calling to those veterans to check in on them and to make sure they have everything they need in this time. In some cases, the Legion has delivered food to those who need it, Witchen said.
“We’re still helping the public and our veterans as much as we can,” he concluded.
