NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – A financial adviser donated $150,000 to make sure the Village Halloween Parade returns this year after organizers feared a lack of funds would axe the annual hair-raiser.
The parade was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic, and while organizers got the necessary permits for an in-person 2021 parade, they lacked the funding to make it happen.
Earlier this month, organizers set up a fundraiser with a $150,000 goal, but they were apparently short of raising enough money to support the event.
Now the parade has been raised from the dead with the help of Jason Feldman, a senior vice president of wealth management at UBS Financial Services, who donated the entire amount, the Daily News reported.
“I felt like the parade should go on,” Feldman told the outlet. “This is the best medicine for our city. It’s just such a fun, free-spirited thing. Everyone gets to be themselves. It’s just a fun, wonderful thing for a lot of people.”
Jeanne Fleming, the artistic/producing director of the parade, said she was afraid they wouldn’t meet the Oct. 5 deadline.
“It was too late for sponsors,” she said. “We just were in this tight bind. We had to figure this out in the next couple of weeks otherwise we were canceling.”
The 48th annual parade is now set for Oct 31, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. This year’s theme will be “Let’s Play” and is dedicated to “the children of New York who didn’t get a proper Halloween in 2020 and to the child in all of us.”
On a normal year, the parade attracts hordes of revelers to Greenwich Village as Halloween-themed floats and thousands of costumed participants stream up Sixth Avenue from Spring Street to 16th Street.
Comedian and singer Randy Rainbow will be the parade’s grand marshal and will be on a float featuring the NYC Gay Men’s Chorus.
Hip-hop group Naughty by Nature will also be in the parade, organizers said. They’ll perform hits from their self-titled debut album as they celebrate 30 years since its release.
Organizers said the parade will follow all CDC guidelines related to COVID-19. And they asked spectators and participants to wear masks and “get creative making them.”
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