HILLTOWNS — The Hilltown Memorial Day Parade, which will step off on Monday morning looking effortless, has been worked on since December.

It’s the 61st time the Kiwanis Club of the Helderbergs has hosted the parade. “The parade predates us. It was originally put together by the three towns — Berne, Knox, and Westerlo,” says Nicole Gladieux, this year’s parade chairwoman.

She explains in this week’s Enterprise podcast that, as the parade grew, the towns asked the Kiwanis to take it on as a community project.

“My dad was parade chair for years … my mom was parade chair, and so I’m a legacy,” said Gladieux, who now lives on Settle’s Hill.

Both of her parents, she said, came from families who supported their local community — “always with the mind to help make the world a better place,” she said.

The Gladieux family moved to the Helderberg Hilltowns in the 1980s and Russell Gladieux joined the Kiwanis right away.

“It was a men-only community club,” said Nicole Gladieux.

“In the ’90s, they opened it to women,” she said, recalling Jan Van Etten was the first to join “and then Mom joined. And it’s really changed; women have changed the club tremendously.”

Gladieux went on, “Some clubs that have not embraced adding women to their membership. I’m not sure they’re blossoming and growing as much as the Helderberg club.”

The Helderberg club has 27 active members and is always eager to welcome more, she said, noting it has local projects as well as international reach.

“Kiwanis International has helped eradicate rickets with their iodine program,” Gladieux said. “They’ve eradicated maternal tetanus that took millions of babies.”

Close to home, the Helderberg Kiwanis helps support the Hilltown Community Resource Center and the Berne-Knox-Westerlo schools.

From her involvement with the resource center, Gladieux realized “transportation was a big, big issue for families that were struggling — and so we now do gas.” The club buys cards for gas from Stewart’s Shops so that residents in need can use them to get to doctors’ appointments and the like.

“If there’s a need,” said Gladieux, “we can help fill it. We have helped people move that couldn’t do it themselves on the Hill. We have supported families that have been burned out or evicted, families that were in need of furniture and clothing.

Some of the help is well known — filling trucks with food from a regional center for the resource center in Westerlo or supporting Little League teams — but much of the help is private. “Most recently, we bought some graduation gowns that kids couldn’t afford,” said Gladieux. “We’ve bought some field-trip tickets for kids that couldn’t afford to go.”

Discussions on the Memorial Day parade started as Kiwanis volunteers were helping with the annual clothing store in November. A church in Loudonville collects masses of clothes — a youth project for the church — which becomes a store for Hilltowners to get everything from winter jackets to baby clothes. Anything that isn’t used locally is sent to others in need.

“This year, we supported the Afghanistan refugees,” said Gladieux and baby clothes have gone to a young mothers’ group in Schoharie County.

Gladieux ran through the list of people and groups that had to be contacted for the parade, starting with the BKW superintendent since the parade concludes at the memorial on the school campus.

The state police were contacted because they help with traffic, closing off the parade route from traffic “so that the parade is uninterrupted and safe.”

Organizers also contact the East Berne fire company because its fire police help with closing the roads, the local businesses who donate use of their parking lots, the gun club because the horses convene there, and the families along the parade route that have hosted adult marchers.

Local organizations — Scouts and 4-H, the library, volunteer fire companies and ambulance squads — are all contacted, too, as are those with antique cars or military vehicles.

“When I was in high school,” said Gladieux, “the BKW marching band was a big part of the parade but COVID pretty much ended that pursuit.”

Still, she said, “The parade is a place where the essential workers, the fire companies, the ambulance companies can share … not in a crisis situation, what the tools of their trade are.”

The volunteers put on their dress uniforms, she said, “and get out and feel the pride of their work, and it’s such important work.”

Veterans are honored and that will include Mike Willsey of Berne, who served in World War II.

Gladieux concluded, “I think that, as long as there are people that remember the parade and being either in it or watching it, that there’s that draw — and it’s a solemn event.”

The parade ends at the school campus where the Veterans of Foreign Wars post holds a flag ceremony with Boy Scout Troop 79. “It is a very solemn thing and people come in with their flags …,” said Gladieux. “It’s really very powerful.”

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Nicole Gladieux urges people to “come out and be a part of the community coming together.” 

The parade starts at 10 a.m. on Memorial Day, May 29 at the Berne/Senior Center parking lot and wends its way along Route 443 to the Berne-Knox-Westerlo campus in Berne. “It’s a wonderful way to spend two hours,” said Gladieux.

She also said that anyone who is interested in joining the Kiwanis Club of the Helderbergs should email HelderbergKiwanis@gmail.com.

“We would love to meet you,” said Gladieux. “New members are amazing because they bring fresh energy and fresh ideas.”