To Life!

ON THE COVER

Love A Parade!

Staff photo by Armando Rios

Jimmy Manchel, Jason Brooks, Brad "Bubba" Urdan and Jeff Fox,

all of West Bloomfield, at the Parade Company

Friends provide
marching orders for
Thanksgiving floats.

Shelli Liebman Dorfman

Staff Writer

T

ime was when Jason Brooks
and his friends actually used
Thanksgiving morning for sleep.
But in recent years, they've been up by 5
a.m. to report for duty as volunteers of
America's Thanksgiving Parade held in
downtown Detroit.
Brooks, along with Jeff Fox and his

daughter Jodi, 22, and pals Jimmy
Manchel and Brad "Bubba" Urdan, all of
West Bloomfield, are part of the parade's
assembly" The team is responsible for
making sure each float, band, equestrian
unit, celebrity and oversized inflatable bal-
loon is lined up in the proper order before
the start of the parade. This year's parade
will begin traveling down Woodward at
Mack Avenue at 9:20 a.m. Thanksgiving
Day, Nov. 23.
The group has been working assembly
together for seven years, but most had
prior parade experience.
Jason began in 1997 at the Parade
Company, the nonprofit group that pro-
duces the annual holiday parade. He
became involved after board member
Gary Wasserman —.among those being

honored by the organization this year
— heard he was handy and invited him to
come see the event in its early stages.
Jason was spellbound by the floats and
other parade units in the huge Detroit
warehouse. "It was kind of magical, like
Candy Land," Jason said. "There were
large papier-mache heads froin Verragio,
Italy, and everything was so colorful. And
I got to meet the lead artist who drew up
whimsical ideas for the.floats. There was
a whole volunteer army working — and
there I was in my suit, watching them."
Days later, Jason returned in jeans, ready
to put his power tool experience to work.
"The next thing I knew, I was building a
float:' Jason said.
For the next couple of years, he spent
one or two nights a week during the few

months before the parade, downtown
building floats. "It was a very cool feeling
on parade day to be able to look at a float
and say,`I built that:" he said.
Jason later became involved in working
the morning of the parade — in assembly.
For a while he also attended and later
volunteered at the Hob Nobble Gobble,
the Parade Company's annual black-tie
fundraiser the night before the parade. ,
He would sleep downtown after it ended
and go straight to his parade post in the
morning.

Creating A Team
Meanwhile; Jeff also was recruited by a
friend on the Parade Company board. He

Love A Parade! on page 38

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November 23 • 2006

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