One of the purposes of my personal blog is to help support and promote local businesses and non-profits. Due to my previous involvement with the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce I discovered that the City of Torrance no longer enters a float to the Tournament of Roses Parade paid for with public funds; but rather now relies on private donations to the Torrance Rose Float Association (TRFA). It made sense, to me anyway, that I should attempt to give a little more exposure to this non-profit. After a couple of discussions with various TRFA volunteers I was directed to Fiesta Parade Floats in Irwindale, CA.

Fiesta Parade Floats is a premiere float builder with an average of 67% of their floats winning trophies over the last 20 years. They have won the Sweepstakes Trophy for the last 19 years in a row.

These photos were taken over the course of two days. The first three were taken on December 8 with the remaining photos taken on December 24.

The first day I went there happened to be Kaiser Permanente's Family Day, so the Kaiser Permanente float was the one most prominently featured. There was no real decorating going on so I decided to make a second visit on Christmas Eve.

There had definitely been a lot of progress made on the floats over the two weeks since my first visit, however, no flowers had been added as of yet. It appeared that most of the floats had been assembled, and they were in the process of putting scaffolding around the floats so the volunteers could begin adding the flowers and seeds.

The actual decorating of the floats begins today, December 26. My access has been cut off unless I can find a float sponsor that will grant me a media pass, so if that happens I will post a follow-up report. Until then, you can see all my photos at http://www.gotbaddog.com/float-preparation-fiesta-floats/

You can view my report of the 123rd Tournament of Roses Parade at http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-725468.