Birthday Parades Take Off In Popularity Amid Coronavirus

PLAINFIELD IL — It all began when Lena Watley Jumper responded to an invitation to participate in a birthday party parade by a mom whose son’s birthday party got canceled.

“Anyone want to participate? Yea, I got nothing going on,” the Plainfield woman thought as she signed up to do the parade.

Then, since she didn’t have a lot going on during the quarantine, she decided to start a Facebook page and help others

And then the page took off.

“We ended up cutting off our membership at close to 700 members,” she said. “The best thing about it is the moms' feedback on the page.

“They are saying thank you for making this the best birthday party ever.”

Her page, “Covid 19 Birthday Quarantine Parades,” has grown so much that she has had up to seven parades per day.

Watley Jumper has a relationship with local fire and police departments. She spent time as a dispatcher and firefighter and her primary desire in this project is to be sure she keeps everyone safe.

“Safety comes first,” she said. “We do not let the parents congregate because that is not socially responsible now.”

Not only does she stress the importance of safety for the people on the sidewalks, but also for the people in the cars.

"The parade group does not allow kids to ride unbuckled in the parade," she said. "This is an order from law enforcement, so let's keep our kids safe and follow the rules so that (we) will be able to continue bringing birthday joy to our community.

"As a former paramedic, nothing is more important than safety."

Troy Fire Protection District Deputy Chief Howard Hoffman said the fire district is happy to join in on the birthday parades.

“We’re happy to provide what we can to the community,” Hoffman said. “It’s a good break from everything that is going on.

“It is a high spot in the day.”

Ordinarily, the fire district would have a lot of in-person events in the spring that help to connect them to the community. So when Watley Jumper approached the fire protection district via Facebook, Hoffman said they were happy to get involved.

“We were happy to get out and about in the community,” he said. “If it’s keeping everybody’s well-being in mind, then we are all for it.”

Plainfield Fire Protection District Chief Jon Stratton agreed.

"We've done probably around 20 to 25 birthdays so far," he said. "I think it’s important for people to see and know who we are, not just in emergencies."

Stratton said he has had families call the fire house to say thank you and offer to buy firefighter/paramedics dinner to express their gratitude. And the firefighter/paramedics are enjoying doing it as well.

" As long as we can make it so our guys are safe all the time," Stratton said.

Because the parades have people in their individual cars, and the families celebrating the birthday are practicing social distancing from anyone who is not in their household, it is a safe event.

Safety also includes logistically organizing the parades in a responsible way.

“I pick a rally point that is close to the child's house without crossing any subdivisions,” Watley Jumper said.

Because she is working with local fire and police departments, she makes sure that the families who are celebrating birthdays know that the fire department of police departments who are riding along with the birthday parades might have to break off at any time to answer a call. To make that as safe as possible, she puts the safety vehicles at the end of the parade. The volunteer cars that participate in parades go in the front of the parade and the friends and family who are participating for a particular birthday participant go in the back of the parade, but in front of the public safety vehicles. Watley Jumper said this is because she knows that those cars might want to stay for a minute and talk to the family, while still observing social distancing.

Since she has had up to seven birthday parades in one day, she knows that the volunteer drivers who are driving in more than one parade will need to move on to the next house to keep the schedule.

In the time that Watley Jumper has been organizing birthday parades, she has made connections with individual people and small businesses that want to help children celebrate their birthdays while in quarantine. For a time, she coordinated with Nicole Swanson, who works for Lisa's Facepainting and Balloons.

"My stuff was sitting here and I am seeing all these birthday parades and I said my balloons are just sitting here, can I make a couple balloons and give them to the kids," Swanson said.

Swanson said would post to the parade page ask if anyone was interested in balloons for the birthday child, and then they could reach out to her. But as we understand more about how coronavirus behaves, that part of the birthday parades stopped.

"We had to stop because of the possible transmission, we were told to stop," Swanson said.

Currently, Watley Jumper's schedule for birthday parties is completely full.

"Unfortunately we stopped taking parade requests but I’ve heard other groups are popping up," she said. "And hopefully the story inspires more people to start groups."