This year’s pre-Halloween Parade will begin at 6 pm, Wednesday, Oct. 29. 

It will be at Boutwells Landing senior’s center.  And, if like past years, will attract 400 to 500 ten-and-under kids and as many seniors as can crowd into Boutwells administration building main corridor. The seniors will drop upwards of 30,000 pieces of candy into kids’ bags.  Tricksters, in return, will show off their costumes.  

Kids, parents and grandparents, will begin lining up outside Boutwells main entrance an hour ahead, where they’ll be entertained by the Stillwater High School pep band.  Inside, seniors will occupy every chair that can be squeezed into the Town Center, with wheel-chairs two and three-deep at both ends of the hallway.

First stop, inside, will be the “Purple Pinkie” table, where kids will get their “pinkie” fingers dipped in purple ink.  They, if they have one, will drop a small monetary donation into a Polio Plus pot.  The money will go to Polio Plus, a Rotary International campaign which is “that close” to eradicating polio around the world.  Painting pinkies purple is how kids in distant countries are marked after being immunized.

This will be the 13th year Stillwater’s Sunrise Rotary and Boutwells Landing have sponsored the Halloween Parade, which has grown to become one of Sunrise Rotary’s main community “give back” programs.  Nearly every one of the Club’s 50-plus members are involved, directing traffic, toting candy and keeping two lines of kids and parents moving.  The Parade has been a “win-win” event since its first year.  Kids like it for the “loot.”  Parents like it because it’s inside, where there’s light, warmth and no rain.