Happy New Year everyone. It is New Year’s Eve 2015 and today I went back out to Fiesta Parade Floats in Irwindale with the hopes of being able to photograph some of the completed floats for the 2016 Rose Parade before they were moved to Pasadena. While I have been photographing the construction of the floats over the past week, I have focused a lot on the City of Torrance entry for obvious reasons, but New Year’s Eve is also the day that I meet up with the representatives of the California Cut Flower Commission (CCFC). Usually I meet up with them at the Rose Bowl, but this year the Miracle-Gro float was also a certified California Grown float, so I went earlier to meet up at Fiesta; it was a good move.
As fate would have it, they were actually judging the floats so all the floats were pretty much completed. That was the thing, when we were last there I mentioned to Tanya that I thought some floats were running behind schedule. Today there were a couple floats that still had scaffolding up for decorating. This was true at the Rose Bowl as well, so maybe the number of volunteers to decorate was down. I do seem to recall seeing more groups in the past.
I was also lucky enough to run into our recently retired chief of the Torrance Fire Department, William Racowschi, so I was able to get a couple photos of him and his fire-fighting buddies by the Torrance float. The City of Torrance thanks him for his service.
After leaving Fiesta Parade Floats we headed to the Rose Bowl to photograph the Cal Poly Universities entry for the CCFC. Again, the stars were lined up perfectly as the Cal Poly float was being brought out for judging just as we pulled up. After photographing that float from every angle possible we went into the tent it came from to see some other entries. There seemed to be a sense of panic for some of these people; floats were being lined up for judging and they still had scaffolding up! In the end, they made the cut, but volunteers were applying the finishing touches while they waited for the judging to reach their float.
I had been asked to stick around for the certification ceremony for the FTD cars as being decorated with California grown flowers. For those of you that did not know; approximately 80% of all cut flowers sold in the United States are imported from other countries. The California Cut Flower Commission and California flower farmers are working with the Cal Poly Universities, Miracle-Gro and FTD to ensure that more than 85% of the flowers used on their floats are American grown, specifically from California’s flower farms. Since I am a 5th generation Californian and this blog concentrates primarily on local business and California this was a no-brainer for me to support.
I would like to thank Cal Poly Universities, the California Cut Flower Commission, Fiesta Parade Floats, The Pollack PR Marketing Group and Adrienne Young Communications for making it so easy for me to provide these photos to you. Have a great 2016!
