By Chris Barber
Contributing Writer

The Avon Grove Memorial Day Parade is an event where “everybody knows your name.”

It’s the prototypical small-town happening at which no one has to worry about getting there early, finding a parking place or staking out a space to peer over the heads of others in the crowd.

Afterward, when the number of spectators is counted, there are several hundred, not several thousand attendees.

The Avon Grove Memorial Day Parade, which honors those Americans lost to war, remains an attraction where visitors may still bring their dogs and marchers are still free to throw candy. 

Many people dress in the red, white and blue of the American Flag, as do a few of their dogs.

Most visitors say they are there not for the spectacle, but to see their sons, daughters and grandchildren march down the street with the school band.  Some others who came this year said they showed up because they were urged to attend while they were getting a haircut in John Ruffini’s Barber Shop. Ruffini is the chairperson of the committee that plans the parade and celebration.

Attendees were well rewarded by the Saturday parade entertainment which included music, motorcycles, firetrucks, marching veterans and organizational floats.

After the marching and the tributes were over, the West Grove Presbyterian Church up the street fed them lunch.

The weather smiled favorably on West Grove with partly cloudy skies and a slight chilly breeze.

The 25th year of this parade started promptly at 9:10 a.m., as the color guard and band processed down Prospect Avenue, having begun their hike at the Avon Grove Middle School.

The 2025 parade lasted about a half hour and was followed by a remembrance ceremony in Avon Grove Veterans Memorial Plaza, a small, garden-lined park along Evergreen Street with markers honoring those Americans lost to war.

The speaker this year was Lt. Colonel Carl Witte, 78, a veteran of 21 years in the U.S. Medical Service Corps. In his speech, he praised those lost and especially their families.

“Nothing can fill the hole of losing a family member,” he said.

He also described the military members not as war mongers but, “Ordinary people who lost their lives in service to a nation that gave them so much.”

The tribute ceremony was closed by the laying of a wreath by Ruffini and Witte at the monument naming the lost local military members, and then a 21-gun salute and the playing of “Taps.”

The people of the Avondale and West Grove communities can thank the patriotic Ruffini family for organizing the parade and tribute every year.

In 1993, John Ruffini’s late father, Domenico, organized the Veterans’ Plaza, and in 1999 he began the parade.

The annual event is now an important part of the community. 

Also participating in the ceremony were Rev. Jim Mundell, who offered the invocation and benediction, and U.S. Navy veteran William Belanger, who served as host.