Until a couple of weeks ago, the only communication the city of Philadelphia received urging the city to financially support the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day Parade and other ethnic parades in the city came from the organizers themselves.
That’s not enough, says St. Patrick’s Day Parade Director Michael Bradley, who will be testifying before City Council on December 8 along with members of Ethnic Americans United, the new group comprising representatives of all the ethnic parades that march the streets of Philadelphia every year.
So this week, on the heels of the city’s loss of the Dad Vail Regatta after more than 50 years because of money woes, he emailed 25,000 people, including all the major Irish organization in and around the city, asking them to contact the mayor and city council members. Here’s the text of his message:
“Please contact Philadelphia City Council and Mayor Nutter and tell them we need funding for our Irish Parade on March 14, 2010 or it will go the way of the other lost events and revenue in Philadelphia.
“We have been marching since 1771. Do they want to be the ones responsible for the worldwide negative publicity this will create if we don’t reach some kind of SHARING of costs? We are not asking for it all!
“Please be respectful and positive, but strong and effective with your comments. Please contact each member of City Council, you can copy all of them in your “EMAIL TO:” line and send one email to all at once and I will have a copy for our records . This must be done before December 5th as I have to testify on our behalf on December 8th in front of City Council:
anna.verna@phila.gov; bill.green@phila.gov; blondell.reynolds.brown@phila.gov; brian.o’neill@phila.gov; curtis.jones@phila.gov; darrell.clarke@phila.gov; donna.miller@phila.gov; frank.dicicco@phila.gov; frank.rizzo@phila.gov; jack.kelly@phila.gov; james.kenney@phila.gov; jannie.l.blackwell@phila.gov; joan.krajewski@phila.gov; maria.q.sanchez@phila.gov; marian.tasco@phila.gov; william.greenlee@phila.gov; wilson.goode@phila.gov; Michael.nutter@phila.gov; info@philadelphiastpatsparade.com
