Growth of a tradition

To locals, it’s no surprise that thousands will flock to the 34th annual Fourth of July parade Tuesday at Mariners Park in Newport Beach.

Everyone who attends the parade knows it will include games for kids and toddlers, barbecue, a rock wall, a raffle, a sports zone, a dunk tank, a live band and more.

The ever-growing parade is expected to draw about 5,000 people from Newport Beach and the surrounding communities ? more than any previous year. The parade is a result of the efforts of the Mariners Elementary School Foundation, which depends on the event to raise about 10% of its annual funds.

But this isn’t how it always was.

“The Mariners Foundation, which today actually puts on the parade with volunteer help, partnered with the city as the beneficiary of the parade eight years ago,” said Erin Seabold, president of the foundation. “But the city was putting it on long before that.”

The first parade, in 1972, was crafted in the minds of two mothers of Mariners Elementary School students.

Jo Vandervort and Carol Blanchard were chatting in the school’s multi-purpose room one afternoon 34 years ago, and, “Blanchard was complaining about how we didn’t have a Fourth of July parade in the daytime like they had in Palos Verdes,” said Vandervort, the president of the Mariners Community Assn., “and those are fighting words to me.”

She added: “The first year, the bike parade started from the corner of Mariners and Dover. We were right on city streets, including Irvine Avenue. Probably we had 60 prizes and about 55 kids who participated, basically a bunch of my kids’ soccer team friends and Indian Guide friends and everyone we could call up.”

That first parade also featured a “stirring” rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by then-resident Sarah Kerr, Vandervort said.

In the years following the 1972 parade, some changes and additions were made to the program, but the focus remained on good, old-fashioned patriotic fun for kids.

“It grew, and we got Boy Scouts involved, and we just kept going,” Vandervort said.

She doesn’t have kids at Mariners anymore, and she’s not in charge of the parade, but Vandervort has stayed involved with the annual celebration. “Four years ago, I got to ride on the float, and I was grand marshal and emcee.”

Looking back, Vandervort is glad that she started the parade all those years ago, even if it was in an attempt to trump Palos Verdes. “I’ve been in Newport Beach since 1952, and nobody’s better than our city.” The Mariners Park Fourth of July of 1977 parade featured a three-tiered cardboard cake that Jo Vandervort’s boys carried to celebrate the 201st birthday of the United States.dpt.28-goodolddays-CPhotoInfo5J1SDI5I20060628j1jmgznc(LA)