Grand Floral Parade 2004

Every year Portland area skaters gather together to do our duty in community service by joining SOLV and the Rose Festival Association to help distribute the bags to help parade goers in keeping the streets clean.

A little history on the event and why it is such a big deal for Portland Skaters; the law used to state that we were not allowed to skate on the streets in downtown Portland. As a way of getting around the law, at least once a year,we decided to volunteer for the parade duty so we could skate the parade route.NO traffic, streets closed and a captive audience of people waiting for the parade to start.

We were breaking the law, and permission to do it! Now this was too cool, people loved us, the police escorted us, and we had the city streets for 4 miles to ourselves!

Now the law has changed, but we would like to think that part of the reason is our work in volunteering for the City helped to change their mind about inline skaters. Every years since 2000, Portland Skaters have joined forces to skate the city streets. Yes this is our 5 year anniversary of the event!

Here are photos from the

2004 parade I hope that you will join us to make this our largest turn out of skaters on the streets. And enjoy the block party event that takes place before the parade begins. So volunteer today to skate the 2005 Grand Floral Parade email me !

Parade volunteer information is available here, get directions, times, and details on how you can have fun too!