Barb, one of our regular meal Senior Meal volunteers, recounts her experience marching with HIP in the Lake City Seafair Parade a few years ago.

It was summertime in Lake City, so the weather was beautiful. The salmon festival parade was coming up and HIP needed volunteers to join the march, so myself and the rest of the ladies in the Monday Senior Meal prep crew decided to sign up. Someone decided to bring hair dye to make the event more festive, so we all painted our hair bright pink and blue. We called ourselves the HIP Grannies and marched the whole parade! I remember Darcy was there as well, and Jerry was driving the old van behind us. We all put on aprons and handed out dried banana chips, which we had prepared in the HIP kitchen as a healthy and delicious snack. That’s something I’ve always appreciated about HIP, ever since I started volunteering making sack lunches about 15 years ago — there is always an emphasis on good nutrition. The sack lunches always had fresh fruits and meat and cheese sandwiches. That’s an emphasis that still holds today.

Check out more Ten-Year Anniversary stories here.