Real estate firm comes up with cash to save the parade
By Nancy Needham nancy@theacorn.com

Aviara Real Estate has offered the $15,000 Thousand Oaks grandmother Barbara Kloster had pleaded for to save the Conejo Valley Days Parade.

"I'm so excited," said Marty Campbell, Conejo Valley Days on-site chairperson.

The Thousand Oaks Kiwanis are expected to give formal approval next week to their offer to coordinate the 1,200 volunteers needed to put on the parade.

The Kiwanis have always provided the manpower for the 51-year tradition.

"It's a lot of work, and we're going to have to figure out how to do it," said Kiwanis president-elect Don Hegarty. "We're going to have to improvise."

The group usually begins to organize the parade in October. Until those at Aviara Real Estate read about the need for money in the newspaper and offered the cash, everyone thought the parade had been called off.

"I was sad to see the parade go, too. It was a financial decision," Campbell said. "Last year we thought there might not be a Conejo Valley Days at all."

Conejo Valley Days organizers had to make some tough decisions and cut out the parade because of the lack of funds. The committee is made up of a group of nonprofits that put on the event to raise money for charities in the community.

The cancellation and resurrection of the parade could end up creating greater awareness of the need for more volunteers, funding and participants to keep Conejo Valley Days running, she said.

"I hope this gets more people involved in the parade and the event," Campbell said.

Kloster hopes so, too. She was afraid the parade tradition would not be revived if it didn't happen this year. On Dec. 7, she met with members of the City Council, the Conejo Recreation and Park District, organizers of Conejo Valley Days and other concerned citizens to find out what she could do to keep the parade alive.

When she learned it was a matter of $15,000, Kloster, 70, set out to try to raise the money. Now that she has the funding she's focusing on rejuvenating the parade.

"I'm going to try and recruit as many youth groups as I can think of to come and be in the parade," Kloster said. "More participants means more spectators."

Anyone interested in volunteering or being in the parade can call her at (805) 494-8755.

The Thousand Oaks Kiwanis Club's parade committee is expected to approve a formal commitment to organize and present the parade next Tuesday night, according to Hegarty. The Kiwanis are already working to make up for lost time, he said.

Normally, applications to potential participants would have been mailed out next week, Hegarty said.

It would be tremendously helpful, Hegarty said, if a similar financial commitment could be made no later than this summer to keep the CVD Parade alive and well for 2008.

The best option, however, would be an annual sponsor. That way, the Conejo Valley Days Parade wouldn't be in jeopardy for the foreseeable future, Hegarty said.