By: Lauren Spencer
FAYETTEVILLE. Ark. (UATV) – Fayetteville celebrated Mardi Gras a little early on Saturday Feb. 18.
The Fayetteville Mardi Gras Parade returned after a brief hiatus due to the pandemic. This year was the parade’s 30th anniversary.
The parade aims to introduce the concept of Mardi Gras as a local tradition in Northwest Arkansas. They also want to assist the growth of “krewes” and encourage public participation.
A krewe is defined as “an organization that puts on a parade and or a ball for the Carnival season.” according to the Fayetteville Mardi Gras website.
Participating krewes this year included the Demented Krewe of Dickson, Krewe of Olympia, Crudite, Krewe Carnival de Brasil, and Krewe of Barkus.
“This is a community event, we try to encourage people to be entries for community support and we also go around soliciting sponsors” says Michelle Hale, 2023 Fayetteville Mardi Gras Parade Queen.
The queen of the parade is chosen at random. They draw a krewe from a hat and then the queen is voted on. The queen then chooses her king.
The king and queen also chose the year’s charity that all the parade’s profit from parade registration, sponsorships, and donations from the community goes to. This year’s charity was Peace at Home Family Shelter.
“Peace at Home Family Shelter is a domestic violence shelter and services organization, so we work with survivors of domestic violence and their children who are fleeing abusive situations and trying to start over safely in our community” said development director for Peace at Home, Eva Terry.
The parade raised $2,500 for the non-profit. This was more than the parade had raised in the past few years, which was usually around $800.
The money raised for Peace at Home is going to build the Candy Clark Pet Sanctuary. This is for survivors of domestic violence to bring their animals with them when entering the shelter.
“There’s such a strong link between animal abuse and domestic violence it’s very dangerous to leave pets behind in domestic violence situations,” said Terry. “We have people call and say ‘I want to come into the shelter, but I have my dog, or I have my cat.’”
Hale chose Peace at Home because of the work they do for the Fayetteville community.
“Personally, I would like to see us give women and men anyone that’s in an abusive relationship an avenue to escape that and give them an opportunity to make things better for themselves,” said Hale.
While also making charitable donations, the Fayetteville Mardi Gras Parade promotes that it’s ok to have some fun in life. The mission statement says “to act a fool can lighten the hearts of others and reduce stress in oneself, and such, can be a very good thing for all.
To learn more about Fayetteville Mardi Gras visit Fayetteville Mardi Gras | Laissez les bons temps rouler!