Rose Float Decorating Rose Float Decorating

Katelyn Ngo | 11 | Publicist

I woke up bright and early to get to Savanna High School by 5:30 am. Everyone was dressed in layers with jackets and hoodies, including me, but I was still freezing cold. I used to watch the Rose Float Parade on TV and would be amazed by the countless floats that were covered in flowers and leaves. I always wondered about the effort that must have been put into making these floats. I had the opportunity to witness the behind the scenes action of the Rose Float making.

We all were so excited to arrive in Irwindale, California and begin Rose Float decorating. Some of us had to wait and be assigned a task before we could get started. I was so excited to climb on the scaffolding and decorate or at least something more fun than waiting around. My group was assigned to tie branches of leaves together with wire. Time felt like it was barely moving when we were performing our task, but we were all grateful to be contributing. The lunch that consisted of something along the lines of hot dogs and chips was delicious after hours of work.

Helen Tran

| 11 | Vice President

On a very dark Thursday morning, I woke up at 4:00 AM to the blaring sound of my alarm. Quickly turning it off before dozing off again, I repeated the process several times until alas, it was 4:45 AM and I actually had to get up. I woke up my mom and grabbed the backpack I had prepared the night before, finally leaving the house at 5:18 AM. Making it (sort-of) on time at Savanna High School thanks to the help of (totally legal) speeding through empty streets, I was off to a great start to my second ever Rose Float Decorating.

Rose Float Decorating is an annual Key Club service event in which Key Clubbers bus to Pasadena in order to help decorate the Rose Floats seen on TV during the parade every New Year's Day! It is an exhausting event thanks to the eight-hour-long shifts, but somehow, the people you ’ re with always manage to make every bit of it worth it. This year, we got to work on silverleaves pasting glue on them in order to prep them for placement on the actual float. It was eally cool process since we got to see all of the floats being ma hard work and detail that goes behind the placement of every sheer back soreness that I felt on the way home, I enjoyed it, a to see all the beautiful results on TV :) p y y j taught me a lot about leadership and my own holds.