Teacher Brandy Roberts is pictured with the Johnston-Hopkins Elementary School float that will be featured in the Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival and Fair Children’s Parade, which is slated for 10 a.m. Saturday. 

Weeks of hard work and preparation went into the floats for the annual Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival Children’s Parade, and for many parents and teachers the hard part is over.

This year’s float theme for the festival is “Going wild for sugar,” a concept that admittedly stumped float designers at first.

“The hardest part was trying to figure out what we were going to do with that (theme),” said Jennifer Pusateri, a first-grade teacher at Caneview Elementary in charge of decoration for the float.

For Caneview, the school was given the concept of “Animals of the Desert.” The girls participating in the parade will dress as foxes, while the boys will dress as turtles. The float itself will have a “desert feel” to it.

“It’s been pretty smooth so far. We’ve decided on what we’re going to do and the kids are turning in their permission slips,” Pusateri said. “It’s been fun. The kids are really excited to walk in the parade, although some didn’t realize how long we would have to walk.”

The Sugar Cane Festival Children’s Parade begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday and last until noon.

St. Edward School has increased the numbers of participation for the parade each year, said school PTO vice president Marietta Ditch. This year, the school had 130 children sign up.

“Every year we’ve increased in participation more and more,” Ditch said. “We have some very creative parents at our school and this year we were able to complete our float and remain in our budget.”

This year the children for St. Edward will dress up in a “pandas in paradise” theme.

Ditch said it wasn’t easy staying within the budget but collective thinking between parents and teachers got the job done.

“We learned little tricks and things to make it easier and how to cut cost and ways to put the floats together. We just had a great group of parents this year,” Ditch said.

Brandy Roberts, third-grade teacher at Johnston-Hopkins Elementary School, said the post of parade decorater was thrust open her because of her creative ability. In her first year at the helm, Roberts, along with fellow teachers, helped decorate the school’s float.

Johnston-Hopkins’ float theme is “The Animals of the Rainforest.” The school will go with a safari feel for the float with the teachers dressing up as tour guides and the students as the animals.

Roberts said putting together the float was great camaraderie between her and her colleagues. Seventy-nine children will participate in this year’s parade from grades K through second.

“The time I spent with my co-workers was the best part. It was like a relaxing time and you got to see people in a different light outside of the usual classroom talk,” Roberts said.

Roberts, who said she was a stickler when it comes to her work, admitted she was pleased with the way the school’s float turned out.

“I’m usually hard on myself but the kids were pumped up when they saw the float. All the kids had to pass by it in the cafeteria and said ‘Mrs. Roberts you did that?’ You could hear the excitement in their voice,” Roberts said.