STROUDSBURG, Pa. — At Stroudsburg's St. Patrick's Day parade Sunday afternoon, Newswatch 16 found Abby Wright-Smith, marching as a volunteer from Stroudsburg High School.
"We haven't had something like this in a while, and it's nice to know things are getting back to normal," she said.
The Stroudsburg St. Patrick's Day parade was back up and running, like so many other events, for the first year since 2019 -- after it was canceled the last two years, thanks to COVID.
Nine-year-old Noah Svensson of Stroudsburg says his family felt the void and got creative.
"We did a, like a parade on our own street," he said.
His family built their own block parade, complete with makeshift floats and candy.
Others just waited for the hiatus out.
"It's great that this year we're able to have it. As you can see, there's a ton of people around, and everybody is just waiting to have a good time," said Stephen O'Brien of Blakeslee.
"The weather could be better, but it's not gonna stop people from coming out," said Janet Creegan from East Stroudsburg.
Creegan and her friends brought their "kids" this year: pitbull mixes, Peabody, Nicky, and Pumpkin.
Creegan says she'd been coming to the parade every year since 1995.
"It was kind of disappointing the last two years not to be here," she said.
And businesses were happy to get the traction once again as well.
"Everybody's into the parade mode, you know, everyone loves a parade. We get lots of people walking around, milling around downtown Stroudsburg, which is great. And we are on display," said Tricia Fritz, Dunkelberger's Sports Outfitter Executive VP.
But perhaps no one was happier to be back than Noah, blowing the same horn that he did on his home-street parade during the COVID hiatus -- glad to pass the baton to others this year.
"It's really hard when you have to do a lot of work to get it organized and stuff," said Noah.
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