Before the big parade, there’s always the little parade.
For Sunday’s Edison Festival of Light Junior Parade, thousands of children and their families rode through downtown Fort Myers on strollers, bicycles, wagons and floats. They were joined by marching bands, dancing groups and more as crowds packed the sidewalks and cheered.
The Junior Parade is a preview of the much bigger Edison Festival of Light Grand Parade. That gigantic, two-hour parade − taking place Saturday, Feb. 17 − has been billed as the biggest nighttime parade in the southeastern United States.
Many of the floats from the Junior Parade will go on to appear in the Grand Parade, as well.
Both parades are part of the 86th Annual Edison Festival of Light, a two-week celebration of Fort Myers’ most famous winter resident, inventor Thomas Edison.
Here’s more about upcoming Edison Festival of Light events:
Edison Regional Science and Inventors Fairs
Thousands of Southwest Florida students compete in two science-based fairs: The Edison Festival of Light Regional Inventors Fair and the Thomas Alva Edison Kiwanis Science & Engineering Fair. This will be the first in-person event after three years of virtual-only events, but the in-person fairs on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 16-17, aren’t open to the public. They can be viewed virtually on Sunday, Feb. 18 (for the inventors fair) and Tuesday, Feb. 27 (for the science and engineering fair) at Alico Arena at Florida Gulf Coast University. To see the virtual displays, visit edisonfairs.org/fairs and click on “ALL INVENTOR REGISTRATIONS” (for inventors fair) and “ALL SCIENCE REGISTRATIONS (for the science and engineering fair).