Padre Island (KIII News) — When the La Posada Lighted Boat Parade began on Padre Island 44 years ago a new home cost $35,000, gas was 55 cents per gallon, inflation was 11%, and President Richard Nixon resigned from office.
It all began when a group of friends decided to visit each others' homes to commemorate the biblical journey of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter. The boat caravan covered only a few miles of the sixteen miles of Island canals that had houses then.
The parade started with just about a dozen homes in 1974 and a grew until a few years later with the blessing of the fleet by the head of the local Catholic Church. Making the event an Island tradition.
Over the years it grew and when the Padre Island Yacht Club moved to its new home at the end of Whitecap Boulevard the center of the parade moved with it. Then twenty years ago the parade partnered with the U.S. Marines' Toys for Tots program and now raises more toys than any single event in the state.
Last year the program raised 4100 toys and $20,000 to bring Christmas toys to kids in Nueces, San Patricio and Aransas counties.
This year the lengthening of the Friday night parade to pass by Snoopy's Pier, Marker 37 and Doc's Seafood and Steaks along the Intracoastal allows for more public viewing space, and the addition of live coverage of the Saturday parade by KIII-TV are new wrinkles in a forty-year history of the Island signature event.
It all pay off on Sunday morning after the parade when Yacht Club members line up to load the mountain of toys into trucks for transport to kids in the Coastal Bend. That's the payoff for the months of work that go into making the parade a reality.
Tune in Saturday, December 8th at 6:30 p.m. as KIII-TV broadcasts the lighted boat parade for the very first time.
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