Photographs and text (c) 2011 by David Watts, Jr. All Rights Reserved

    For twenty-one Independence Days, since 1991, the Wakefield Independence Day Parade Committee has been organizing and producing the town’s annual July 4th parade. In those years, this small group of local volunteers from a small North Shore town has worked together to build what is today the largest such parade in Massachusetts; the second largest in New England behind Bristol, Rhode Island.

    In the months preceding the holiday, WIDC members do fundraising from local companies to individuals, sign up band and drum corps, solicit for floats, and wrangle requests and questions from all manner of potential participants.

    It all comes together on July 4th. One long day of frenzied activity that culminates in yet another successful parade to entertain some 50,000 people.