Thousands lined Naperville’s streets Monday morning, but as Josue Alvarado chalked up a brown and green tree on the asphalt among them, he drew for a crowd of one: his daughter.

“Fastest summer ever,” Alvarado’s wife, Kristen, said as the couple and their five children waited for the Jaycees’ Last Fling Labor Day Parade to begin. “It goes by faster and faster. We’re not ready to let go.”

The Alvarados seem to come to the parade with one more kid each year, the couple agreed. Their seven-week-old baby slept in the top slot of a double-decker stroller while three kids drew chalk masterpieces of their own and another swung from their arms.

With two full-time jobs and five different schedules, the parade was one more chance for the Bolingbrook couple to celebrate their ever-changing family, they said.

It was perhaps an act of instinct for Roger Schaeffer, who has attended for three decades. The 73-year-old’s children have moved away. The crowd has gotten bigger and the politicians — a campaigning George W. Bush one year — come and go, he said.

But he keeps coming, he said as he walked to the Main Street corner opposite the Alvarados.

It’s a surprise that so few labor groups show up, a far cry from the union-dominated festivities held in Chicago, he noted. He likes the dance groups, a reminder of the years his girlfriend’s granddaughter performed in such a squad.

Further up the route, Marie Shink watched her preschool-attending grandson sit on her son’s shoulders. A man sporting an Army Veteran hat stopped his black Harley Davidson on the road as the spectacle began.

“It’s a great day for a parade, how about it!” he shouted.

A Fire Department delegation followed, splashing water out of red buckets onto the crowd lining the sidewalk in a miles-long line of lawn chairs and yard parties. Behind them came a high school band, a dance troupe and yet another fire truck, this time tossing candy.

The Neuqua Valley High School dance team performs during the Last Fling 2025 Labor Day Parade on Sept. 1, 2025, on Jefferson Avenue in Naperville. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)

“They have such a fine community for a large town,” said Shink, a Naperville resident for around 20 years and a parade regular. “They just manage a small-town feel.”

Under the tree cover lining the city’s residential roads, a woman in a grape costume high-fived attendees. A man dressed as a bottle of ranch followed close, outdone in energy by flag-waving U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville.

A group on another float boasted the banner and wear of Moldova before a Tesla Cybertruck led the way for the Kingdom Martial Arts school’s contingency, made up of a small nunchaku-wielding army sporting black belts and another crop of younger fighters.

The Good Shepherd Church’s band sang and danced as they passed, followed by the town’s Republican Party, a gymnastics team and a fleet of high school cheer teams shouting dueling allegiances.

Dawn Stroms wore a massive reproduction of the cover for children’s book “Dog Man” – “a police officer man has been put into a dog’s body” – as she marched with the Naperville Library.

The best part of the day was seeing some of the kids who came in to read during the summer, she said as her bubble machine filled the air.

“We love the kids. We love everybody. We want them to read,” Stroms said.

Annette Wehrli drives her 1953 Ford tractor “Golden Jubilee” during a Labor Day parade hosted by the Naperville Jaycees on Sept. 1, 2025, on Jefferson Avenue in Naperville. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)

The library’s director wore a “Pete the Cat” costume, the first in a string of mascots: a lanky white bird for The Chicagoland Group, a big-headed boy for College Hunks Hauling Junk and Radon Reduction Systems’ “Radon Man.”

But on the sidewalk, that spectacle did little to sidetrack John Patrician’s 5-year-old son, who knew exactly where he was going: “the games.” Two weeks into kindergarten, the boy already had a favorite part of school, “recess,” and a least favorite, “rest.”

Dad had a favorite thing too.

“Having my son with me, walking around with the bands playing, it’s the greatest thing on the earth,” Patrician said.

Behind them, a vegan group held up posters picturing cows, “please love us” written upon them and antique tractors rolled slowly uphill.

A football team practiced on the field next to the last few groups waiting to launch from Naperville North High School. Kim Baleskie watched as the Waubonsie Valley High School’s band prepped to go.

The baton twirlers are better than she was as a kid, she admitted. Every year, she walks down from her house a few blocks away to get a seat early in the route. To claim a spot downtown, some families put down a blanket the night before, she said.

Anna Zimmerman, of Naperville, hands out candy to parade goers while walking with Operation Support Our Troops-America during the Labor Day parade in Naperville, Sept. 1, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)

She first learned of the parade in 1986 by surprise, she said, when she heard the commotion after just moving to Naperville.

“We look up on Labor Day morning, and all of a sudden our lawn is full of kids,” she said.

The city’s grown far bigger since, and it’s gotten more affluent too, she said. Downtown was “totally different,” and much of the area was farmland.

But the pride remains for the hundreds of kids who march, and everyone is still drawn in, she said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/01/naperville-parade-end-to-summer-families/