GARDEN GROVE : Strawberry Parade Won’t Be Televised

The city’s annual Strawberry Festival Parade will be held as scheduled this year but anyone who wants to see the event will have to do so in person.

Although the parade will feature Pat Boone as grand marshal and may attract other celebrities, festival organizers said Tuesday that they have so far been unable to secure a sponsor to televise this year’s parade, which will take place on May 25.

Last year, the parade was aired on KDOC Channel 56, an Anaheim-based station. Before that, it had been televised on Los Angeles-based KHJ Channel 9--now KCAL Channel 9--for four years.

“When we originally went on television five years ago, the city came up with part of the funding in order to make people more aware of Garden Grove,” said Mary Lou Hill, president of the Strawberry Festival Assn. “After a few years, I think they had accomplished what they wanted in terms of exposure.”

It would have cost about $37,000 to televise the parade on KDOC again this year, organizers said. The association had been prepared to spend $12,000 on television costs and was hoping to attract a sponsor to pay the balance.

Instead, money once earmarked for television will be donated to various community programs. The festival also donates its proceeds to area charities.

“That’s really our purpose anyway,” Hill said. “As a festival, if we funded the parade to go on television, we would just be raising money just to pay for that and that’s not our function.”

Although organizers are disappointed that the event won’t be on television, they say the quality of the parade shouldn’t suffer.

“You get more celebrities when you televise it, but the people who come to the parade seem just as interested in the local color,” Hill said.

The Strawberry Festival, now in its 33rd year, will be held from May 24 to 27 at the Village Green, one block north of Garden Grove Boulevard at Euclid Street.