New Fairfield Parade

The following blog post was written by Sandra, a campaign intern

So it’s week 5 of the Summer Internship Program here at the Chris Murphy for Congress campaign, and this experience becomes more educational and interesting every week. As interns we attend many events in the 5th district to keep in close contact with constituents. My favorite event thus far was without a doubt the New Fairfield 4th of July parade. To be safe, our group arrived fairly early to the parade site – so early, in fact, that we were one of the first groups there. We found ourselves ready with an hour to spare.

However, team Murphy quickly turned the situation into an opportunity to be as visible as possible in our red Chris Murphy t-shirts. We stood alongside the road holding our “Chris Murphy for Congress” signs and waving to passers by. Everybody was so nice and would wave back or honk their horns in support.

One of the advantages of arriving so early was getting to see all the groups show up with their floats and getting the chance to meet so many people. My favorite vehicle was the old World War II tank that some of the Veterans were driving – although we were warned to keep a good distance from the front because the tank had a tendency of jerking forward every time it was set in motion.

The day started off with some light rain, but luckily the weather turned and around 9:30 am we began to march. The marching band was the group just in front of us and they did such a spectacular job throughout the parade playing songs like “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and kept us all at a steady pace. I was given a bag of candy just before we began to march which I delightfully threw to the spectators. I’ve never marched in a parade before so I was really excited. The atmosphere was awesome. People waved and clapped as we walked by and children ran forward with their bags to collect the candy.

Too soon we rounded the final corner and came to the end of the parade. Team Murphy stood at the end of the crowd and watched and cheered for the final groups. After the parade we walked back to the cars we’d parked at Shaw’s, parted ways, and I headed home to crawl back into bed…

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