Advertisement

Save your costumes for 2023. This beloved Olympia event will not return this year

Though many of the events sidelined by COVID-19 have returned, the Pet Parade — the long-loved procession that filled downtown Olympia’s streets with costumed kids and pets for 90 years — is still on hiatus.

In 2019, The Olympian, which had run the parade since 1928, announced that the Hands On Children’s Museum would take over the event, beloved by generations of South Sound families.

Then came the pandemic. In 2020, the museum held a virtual version, livestreaming pictures of dressed-up children and animals, but since then, there’s been no mention of the parade, traditionally held on the third Saturday in August.

Why is the celebration — arguably Olympia’s cutest — still among the missing?

Blame COVID-19, said Patty Belmonte, executive director of the children’s museum.

The museum, which was closed for a big chunk of 2020 and then slowly reopened with limited capacity, didn’t host a big event until June, when the Fire Rescue Spectacular returned.

“We felt like we couldn’t bring back one big street fair and add another one, because we hadn’t done one in three years,” Belmonte said. “We thought, ‘Let’s restart the one we know and see how it goes.’ ”

Even the fire rescue event was up in the air until April, she said, adding that though it went well, “it taxed us, because we are still not up to our full employee count. And we are still holding attendance down. We are still trying to figure this out.”

She expects the museum to launch its version of the Pet Parade in 2023, either in the spring or the summer.

And the museum’s event won’t look quite like the Pet Parade of the past: It might be not one parade but a series of them, and the whole event — including other animal-themed activities and likely other animal visitors — will happen on the street in front of the museum, at 414 Jefferson St. NE, Olympia.

There’s one more logistical challenge for museum staff to resolve, Belmonte said. Like the Fire Rescue Spectacular, the Pet Parade will be a free outdoor festival tied in to activities inside the museum

“We see it as a whole learning festival,” she said. “The fun of being in a pet parade is part of it, and part of it is learning more about animals and the ways that humans and animals depend on each other.”

But pets can’t come inside the museum.

“We queried parents about this, and they were asking, ‘Can we bring our pets inside the museum?’” she added. “We realized that if the child wants to stay and play, one parent or a family member is going to have to take the animal home. When you start a new event, you have to think through all of these things.”

Though the parade will look different, Belmonte promised that it will have “the fun of pet parade that we all remember.”

“We all love to see kids and animals together,” she said. “It’s such a beloved event, and we are hoping not to lose the history of the event. We love the idea of the museum remaking it, but the world changed when the pandemic came in, and we had to set it aside for a while.”

The Olympian has fielded inquiries about the parade this year, and its editor, Dusti Demarest, will be happy to see it return.

“I know how much the community has missed the Pet Parade, so I’m sad it won’t be back this month,” Demarest said. “However, I also know how difficult it’s been to get large events back up and running. We will look forward to helping out however we can in 2023.”