Many said they were grateful to return to normalcy after missing out on July 4th celebrations last year due to safety restrictions in place in the first months of the global pandemic, which began to spread in America in March 2020.
Crowds lined the streets of Liberty Township early Sunday for the 9 a.m. start of its first parade since 2019.
“It’s great to be back at the Liberty Township parade,” said resident Todd Minniear.
“The whole community has missed it. It’s a chance to come together. It’s great to be back,” he said.
Kristin Fuller rode her red, white and blue clad horse in the parade, which started at Lakota East High School.
“We missed it last year,” she said.
Later in the day West Chester Twp’s Voice of America Metro Parks hosted a “Taps, Tastes and Tunes Festival” in the shadow the VOA Museum building.
Live music joined delicious food truck aromas wafting through the air as families with children also enjoyed amusement rides brought on to the park grounds.
And mid-afternoon saw thousands line Hamilton’s central business district High Street to see their first July 4th parade in two years.
Amber Reiff, a long-time Hamilton resident whose multiple generations had always made the annual parade a family event, said there was a sense of relief in her household and joy about getting back to their tradition.
“It has been extremely wonderful to get back out and to just celebrate all of this with everybody,” said Reiff.
“It has been very hard not doing anything last year. So to everybody’s smiling faces back this year it’s extremely amazing. It’s definitely a family tradition and it has been a very big part of our lives,” she said.
Joe Kautz and young daughter Autumn made themselves comfortable on a large, inflatable chair curbside to better see the parade roll through downtown.
“It’s nice to be out and get these experiences back and mark these memories down and just come back out and just experience life again,” said Kautz.
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