Would You Volunteer to Save the 4th of July Parade?

The Natick Friends of the Fourth have now stated on their website that they will not cancel this year's July 4 parade if they get volunteers to sign up soon.

"In addition we need to make sure that we have a base of volunteers willing to commit to these events for a few years so that we won’t be back in the same boat next year," the website stated. "Once we have an established base of volunteers, we will be able to make up committees so that the work will be spread to many people so that no one is overwhelmed and people will want to help out. These events are a lot of work to organize and orchestrate, but working together we can get this done."

Last week the Natick Friends of the Fourth had announced that they were cancelling the parade, a tradition since 1956, and many residents were caught off-guard and upset as they hadn't known that the annual event had been in jeopardy.

A lack of volunteers has been a problem in recent years, though, and in 2011 Bruce Weisberg, who was the chairman of Natick Friends of the Fourth at the time, told Patch one week prior to the event in that the event might not continue if more people didn't volunteer.

Now it looks like there is a chance the parade will go on.

Anyone interested in volunteering should the Friends of the 4th with your name and contact information and area of interest to natick4thparade@gmail.com.