Eight-year-old David Connell stood in his stocking feet on the playground at Academia Ana Marie Sandoval Elementary School, smiled broadly at his father, John, then held up his prize.
“I won four suckers playing darts,” he announced, the candies sticking straight up between the fingers of his clenched right fist.
Soon, Connell’s wife, Kellie Teter, came over to talk about what she had found: information about a push to encourage Katie Couric to cover more stories on child poverty when she takes over the anchor chair at CBS News.
This was the first Mother’s Day Parade and festival in Denver, where cotton candy for the little ones and campaign literature for the big’uns seemed to go hand-in-hand as easily as parents and children crossing the street together.
The parade was put together by a group called Mothers Acting Up, which started in Boulder and has sponsored parades such as this across the country, and a political lobbying group called Every Child Matters. The goal is to motivate the parents of young children to become a voting bloc to fight for children’s causes.
“It’s really nice to be a part of something like this,” said Mothers Acting Up development director Sarah Kraft, just before walking with daughter Emma in the parade.
About 50 adults and kids gathered Sunday afternoon in the Highland neighborhood to march roughly four blocks to Sandoval Elementary, where a carnival was set up and the organizing groups had information on their campaigns.
This being an event prominently involving children, the parade started late, moved slowly, became a little disjointed and made much noise.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
