The Swallow’s Day Parade is an annual event in San Juan Capistrano every March. It celebrates the swallows’ return to the city and residents joins together in downtown. Since 2006, Breakthrough is honor to have the opportunity to march in the parade. The San Juan Capistrano Fiesta Association hosts the Swallow’s Day Parade to be one of the nation’s largest non-motorized parades.
This past Saturday, we had a great unifying group of over 60 middle school and high school students that marched proudly. The Breakthrough staff and students gathered at San Juan Elementary School excited to start the parade. The city of San Juan began filling the sidewalks and seating themselves to see the various bands, equestrians, walking groups, and horse-drawn floats. The bell rang and it was time to march. Our students started chanting and cheering to show off their Breakthrough pride as they all wore their green “Power in me. Power in us.” shirts. Freshman Italivi (shown in the picture second from the right holding the banner) stated, “I was very happy to march because I am proud of everything that Breakthrough does for me, and having my family watch me be in the Breakthrough group chanting is my way of giving back.” We were fortunate to have such an amazing group of bright students represent Breakthrough. We are excited to represent again next year with even more students!