NORTH OGDEN — Insistent that North Ogden’s Cherry Days parade can’t be put off yet another year, a group of area residents has stepped forward to make sure the event goes on.

Call it a case of grassroots activists doing what they can to make sure COVID-19’s impact doesn’t linger and linger.

“We couldn’t wait another year,” said Mark Miller, who’s spearheading the effort. “For some people in our community, this is like Christmas.”

Cherry Days activities, North Ogden’s traditional summer celebration, were canceled in 2020 as a safeguard against the spread of the COVID-19 virus, same as many traditional events last year. The annual event returns this year, but city leaders opted against holding the parade, a Cherry Days staple. As preliminary Cherry Days planning moved forward, officials held off on parade organization efforts because restrictions previously in place would have required measures enabling tracking of participants in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak, a difficult proposition.

By the time the state largely lifted COVID-19 guidelines and restrictions, there wasn’t sufficient time to properly plan a parade, Mayor Neal Berube said, so officials decided to forego the event, as well as the traditional festivities in North Ogden Park. “I think the general consensus is it takes a solid four months of planning to put on a parade and a vendor fair,” said Jon Call, the North Ogden city attorney.

The Cherry Days fireworks show will still be held, as well the medallion search, five kilometer run and flag ceremony, Call noted.

Still, that wasn’t enough for some, prompting Miller and others to step forward to take matters into their own hands. They’re organizing what they’re calling the Cherry Days Freedom Festival in conjunction with the city events, which will consist of a parade and activities and entertainment at North Ogden Park the morning and afternoon of July 3. Canceling the parade and other Cherry Days events last year was the right call, Miller said, but enough’s enough.

“We’re not doing that again. Independence Day parades are part of who you are,” said Miller, who now lives in nearby Pleasant View but grew up in North Ogden. “Cherry Days is such a part of our community.”

He’s already reached out to North Ogden police about getting the needed permits to secure a parade route and is in the process of organizing volunteers to help with the effort. “For us, it’s a matter of delegating at this point because we have the interest there,” Miller said.

As for COVID-19 restrictions, he nixed the notion of imposing rules on those who take part in the parade and other activities. “There’s no mask mandate at all. That would be completely out of our authority to even ask that,” he said.

The grassroots organizers will address the North Ogden City Council at the body’s meeting on May 25, requesting $15,000 from the city budget for Cherry Days activities, funds that would presumably otherwise go unused. Call expressed a measure of skepticism about providing funds to a citizens’ group, concerned about setting a precedent, but both he and Berube lauded the residents’ efforts to keep the parade alive this year.

“I’ve always appreciated citizen involvement and I wish them the best of luck,” Berube said.