Chicagoland Toys For Tots Motorcycle Parade
Since 1979, Western Avenue has been the venue for what is billed as the largest motorcycle parade in the world. On the first Sunday of December each year, thousands of motorcyclists assemble at the Dan Ryan Woods Forest Preserve at 87th Street and Western Avenue, bringing new, unwrapped toys for donation to the Toys for Tots charity. The parade drives north to deposit toys at Lane Tech at Addison Street, a distance of over fifteen miles. From 1979 through 2008, the parade instead continued north to deliver the toys to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve station on Foster Avenue, a total distance in excess of eighteen miles.
Read more about this topic: Western Avenue (Chicago)
Famous quotes containing the words toys, tots, motorcycle and/or parade:
“Why should kings and nobles have
Pictured trophies to their grave,
And we, churls, to thee deny
Thy pretty toys with thee to lie—
A more harmless vanity?”
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834)
“The school system, custodian of print culture, has no place for the rugged individual. It is, indeed, the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“Today, only a fool would offer herself as the singular role model for the Good Mother. Most of us know not to tempt the fates. The moment I felt sure I had everything under control would invariably be the moment right before the principal called to report that one of my sons had just driven somebody’s motorcycle through the high school gymnasium.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eyes is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)