The Gloucester County Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department held the annual Christmas and Holiday parade virtually on Saturday. This year, the pandemic forced the parade to go virtual, spawning the first Mini Virtual Edition of the parade, with the theme “Hometown Holiday.” The event raised close to $400 for the local Bread for Life community food pantry.

Thirty-four community members, school groups, local businesses and Gloucester County departments decorated shoebox-sized floats. These floats were filmed in front of several different Main Street backdrops and included commentary from an emcee to make the event as authentic as possible. The parade debuted Saturday afternoon on the Parks, Recreation and Tourism website and social media pages.

On Sunday, all the parade entries were taken to Main Street for the public to view under a tent on the lawn of Split Enz Salon during the Main Street Business Open House event.

“We were shocked at the number of people that had seen th...