Initially, the Fiesta Bowl moved its annual parade from Jan. 2 to April 10, hoping by then the COVID-19 situation would allow for a parade and large gatherings of people to happen.
It soon became clear that a parade wouldn’t be in the cards this year, but Mike Nealy, the Fiesta Bowl executive director, said he wanted to still have an event for the parade’s sponsor Desert Financial Credit Union.
Desert Financial has been a sponsor for some of the Fiesta Bowl’s non-football game-related programing since 2018, including the title sponsor of the parade and the bowl game’s Wishes For Teachers education grant program.
Without a parade, the Fiesta Bowl team cooked up an idea to bring the parade feel and its sponsor Desert Financial to communities around the state, but without mass gatherings. From March 22-26, Fiesta Bowl and Desert Financial officials will be taking a bus across the state of Arizona, including to communities outside the Phoenix-metro area in Prescott, Flagstaff and Tucson, making donations to education and youth sports groups. They are calling it the Kindness Arizona tour.
Read more of this subscription-only story from the Business Journal.
