Like art, Handmade Parade is for everyone, and YOU ARE invited to craft your creative addition to the show! 

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This parade has a long history of being themed to honor the Eno River and up-cycling, breathing new life into our world with imagination, ingenuity, and what we already have. Those concepts are woven into the identity of this parade and will continue to be a forever theme. We invite you to find inspiration in them year after year. This year, we introduce a parade inspiration as well, and it feels only appropriate for a town well-known for its writers and poets. In a word...

 

**Sonder:**
*n. the sudden realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own - with their own ambitions, routines, loves, worries, pain - an epic story that continues invisibly around you, in which you might appear once, in the background of a coffee shop, in a car passing on the highway, or, in moments like this - dancing in the streets of Hillsborough, NC, in the Handmade Parade.*

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On June 1, 2024, we let the mundane and banal, the monotonous and humdrum, rest. We come together as our most imaginative selves, in support of one another, to celebrate art, fun, and what becomes possible when we come together.

 

You can transform everyday objects into spectacular, wearable costumes or puppetry masterpieces. We encourage you to use recycled cardboard, paper, old backpacks, helmets, hats, stray wires, dowels, newspapers, paint, glitter, or anything that sparks your imagination to come as your most creative self.

 

Whether you craft a puppet or help carry one of ours', we need your help to pull off this parade!