A longtime float participant, one that has pushed thematic boundaries, will be missing from the 2024 Rose Parade.
After a decade of involvement, bringing compelling advocacy themes to a world stage, Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation will not participate in the New Year’s Day tradition.
The nonprofit — the largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the world, according to its website — pulled its entry from the parade sometime after the Thanksgiving holiday, according to Ged Kenslea, AHF spokesperson.
AHF and its float builder/designers at Fiesta Parade Floats were just not able to synchronize to deliver a design, Kenslea said in a Thursday, Dec. 7 phone interview.
“It’s a different version of writer’s block,” Kenslea said, in trying to incapsulate what happened. “It’s a float version of writer’s block.”
It’s important for the nonprofit, said Kenslea, to live up to its reputation for thought-provoking messages surrounding such issues as healthcare, homelessness, gay rights and anti-violence.
“Time just got away from us,” Kenslea said. “We did not want to put a float in the parade that didn’t meet our standards.”
But how does time get away when you’ve had an entire year to prepare?
Well, that’s a complex tale involving AHF’s 11-year Rose Parade history, a founder’s fascination with an early rendition of Mickey Mouse and the Tournament of Roses unwritten “only one” rule.
AHF’s first entry onto the Rose Parade scene was in 2012 when they fashioned a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor who championed HIV and AIDS programs starting in the 1980s.
Then, in 2014, AHF caused a stir when Danny LeClair and Aubrey Loots, a gay couple, were married atop a two-tiered wedding cake float.
That public, historic wedding almost didn’t happen, said Kenslea, until Farmer’s Insurance canceled its same-sex wedding plans and AHF was given the green light.
The release of doves, in fact, after LeClair and Loots tied the…
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