The Florida Citrus Parade started in 1980 and it celebrates the holidays and the two annual games: The Russell Athletic Bowl and the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl. The parade is organized and produced by Florida Citrus Sports and is syndicated on over 100 television stations.
Our group of about 35 people comprised just a fraction of the 600 volunteers who give their time (in shifts) to work on the parade. We started the day off at 1:00pm signing in at the Orange County Convention Center with this Parade Assistant Taylor La Rocca. We grabbed our building aprons, filled them with rubber bands (used to hold the citrus to the floats) and were quickly coached on how to do our jobs.