Webster Electric Parade is among village's biggest ever

Cloudy skies and a cold, intermittent rain earlier in the day threatened to put a damper on Webster’s Electric Parade Saturday night. But the dreary weather didn’t deter 6-year-old Vincent Saliceti and his father, Joe, from staking out a curbside spot a full half hour before the parade began.

The Salicetis live in Irondequoit, but have been coming to Webster’s holiday parade for five years. “We love the community feeling of it,” Joe Saliceti said. “We’re Webster wannabes.”

They joined an estimated 4,000 people Saturday night who braved a stiff wind and early winter chill to watch the village’s 14th annual parade.

This year’s parade featured 73 individual units, representing more than a dozen community agencies, Scout troops and local businesses, and 10 fire departments and first responders, who came from as far away as Richmond, Ontario County, and the hamlet of Marbletown, Wayne County. And every one of the trucks, cars, boats, ATVs — and even most every marcher — was bedecked in multicolored Christmas lights.

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It was one of the biggest holiday parades the village has ever seen, according to Tom Indiano, a past Webster fire chief, who organizes the parade every year.

“Every year it gets bigger and bigger,” Indiano said. “It’s great the way the community continually supports it.”

New this year was a float created by the JACK Foundation, an organization created to honor the memory of 3-year-old Jack James Heiligman, who was killed in October in a tragic accident. Its float was totally covered in twinkling blue lights, Jack’s favorite color. 

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Trophies are awarded in several categories including most creative and best in show, but the firefighters mostly appreciated the opportunity to get together for a positive cause.

“All of these companies, when we work with them, it’s on really bad days,” Indiano said. “This is an opportunity to work together to support our community during the holiday season.”

But if you ask little Vincent Saliceti, it’s all about the firetrucks. “I like all the firetrucks (and) that they save us,” he said. “They’re going to look cool.”

And the parade? It was going to be “as fun as the world!”