Teddy Bear Parade

On the last Saturday in September, the barricades go up across downtown Gresham before the bears come down the street. For the 2026 parade, held Saturday, September 26, the route roads closed at 7 a.m., two hours earlier than usual. Residents were asked to move parked cars out of downtown before parade day. The paper’s preview noted that every year a few cars have to be towed. By ten o’clock the curbs belong to spectators. “You walk around, put your chairs out, talk with neighbors and friends,” Kayla Viramontes, president of Soroptimist International of Gresham and the parade’s coordinator, told the Outlook in 2025. “There is an excited buzz.”

The city’s listing for the 2026 edition, the 44th, asked participants and spectators alike to bring their teddy bears, and called the day a celebration of children in the community. Marchers are encouraged to wear bear-themed costumes or carry a bear.

Miller, Second, Main, Hood, Fifth

The parade forms in the parking lot of East Hill Church at Fifth and Main. From there it goes down Miller, turns up Second, comes down Main past the emcees, and winds back to the church by Hood and Fifth. The loop is short and the line is long, so the first entries are back in the lot while half the parade is still waiting to set out. The 2025 and 2026 parades each had close to 80 entries, and the 2026 count put nearly 2,000 people in the line of march. The club’s sponsorship page gives the figure as more than one hundred entries.

The Outlook’s account of the 2025 parade, the 43rd, lists who came:

school kids bouncing along the road the Gresham and Centennial marching bands in their school colors Gophers and Bruins cheerleaders mini-horses and dogs firefighters and police officers floats and sports teams * martial arts demonstrations and dancing

The Musikry performed. Girl Scouts came from across the region. Hall Elementary walked, as did the SnowCap team and Dr. Lisa Skari, president of Mt. Hood Community College. Steve Hopkins, a Gresham resident and business owner for more than 50 years, spent the morning cheering for everyone who passed.

Marchers toss candy, hand out stickers, blow bubbles and give away bears. The candy is recent. The club’s 2026 instructions to entrants call it “this new tradition” and warn marchers not to reach into moving vehicles for more. Along the route, volunteers carry batons painted neon and use them to signal groups to speed up or slow down so the gaps close. About 50 volunteers work the day. Political groups and candidates are not admitted. “It is just fun — the balloons, bubbles and teddy bears,” Viramontes said before the 2026 parade.

Bins of bears, and a February ceremony

After the parade, bins at the registration table and around the staging area collect the bears. The smaller ones go to Trauma Intervention Program NW, which gives them to children in moments of crisis. The club’s registration page says bears of 6 to 10 inches work best for the program’s care packages, while its key-information sheet for entrants asks for 6 to 8 inches. The larger bears go to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, and the rest go to SnowCap Community Services and other nonprofit partners. Books and other designated items are collected the same way.

The money takes a longer route. Sponsorships and entry fees make the parade the Soroptimists’ largest fundraiser, and it fully funds the club’s Live Your Dream Awards. These are cash grants to local women who have overcome hard circumstances and who provide the main financial support for their families. Recipients attend Mt. Hood Community College or other local schools. The awards are presented in February, and according to the papers each year’s total has been the largest yet. “100% of what the parade earns stays in this community,” Viramontes said in 2025. “These are women who were dealt hard hands but still got through it.”

Patricia Fiedler’s friendraiser

The parade began in 1982. Its founder was Patricia Fiedler, and the club says it started as a community “friendraiser.” Today it pays for the club’s work with women and girls. That club belongs to a volunteer network with members in more than 120 countries and territories.

The sources differ on when the Soroptimists took the parade over. The Outlook, writing in 2025, dates the club’s management to 1992. The club’s own history page says the early 1990s. Your Oregon News, in its 2026 preview, called that year the 40th anniversary of the club taking the reins.

The 2020 parade was cancelled because of COVID. In its place, MetroEast Community Media produced an hour-long documentary on the parade’s origin and history, told by Fiedler and by parade hosts Carol Nielsen and Greg Matthews. Its second half shows highlights from parades held between 1995 and 2019. The parade returned to the street afterward, and the club’s calendar lists one on September 24, 2022.

“This doesn’t fall on a holiday, so in some ways there is no reason to have the parade,” Viramontes said in 2025. “But it keeps happening because everyone loves it.”