The 2021 EAST COBBER Parade and Festival has been canceled this year due to continuing COVID-19 concerns. Organizers say the cancellation is in compliance with public health rules, “With the COVID vaccine rollouts, we were hoping to bring the hometown tradition back this year—but under current CDC guidelines for community events and large gatherings we could not figure out how to keep participants and guests safe. With the focus on the health and safety of participants and spectators, organizers said canceling at this time is necessary.

“This year would have been the 25th EAST COBBER Parade… I’ve had many conversations in the past several weeks weighing out the risks and rewards of holding the parade, says Cynthia Rozzo, Founder and Publisher of the EAST COBBER magazine.

Cynthia Rozzo, who has organized the parade annually for 25 years, said the continuing COVID pandemic and the uncertainty about when it will finally be safe to hold large gatherings led her to decide to cancel this year’s parade. It’s the right thing to do,” Rozzo said. “I hated to do it. It was a very hard decision to make.”

“The annual parade takes months of planning and preparation to pull off, between securing permission to close roads to hold it and lining up participants as well as other behind-the-scenes steps that have to be taken. Those planning steps have been hampered by the outbreak and the uncertainty about it, the parade’s founder and organizer said.

“We’re in a situation that nobody has been in before, and there’s just too many facets of the parade and festival that have to happen months in advance that cannot be finalized because of the coronavirus situation,” Rozzo said.

The EAST COBBER Parade and Festival was slated to be held September 18, 2021. Founded in 1993, EAST COBBER extended its mission of building a sense of community by establishing a hometown tradition of a community parade and festival. As the producers of the first parade and festival in East Cobb County, the EAST COBBER aims to establish a strong network between schools, businesses, government and clubs to create a showcase event and annual tradition for East Cobb County. The EAST COBBER Parade has become he largest parade in all of Cobb County and is the only community-wide event for East Cobb.

This article was originally printed in EAST COBBER March/April issue.