The decision was made this week by the Perry Chamber of Commerce to cancel the annual Fourth of July celebration, including the parade, musical performances, and activities at Pattee Park.

Chamber Director Lynsi Pasutti says she had been monitoring what other communities had decided with regards to their own Independence Day events, and each one had elected to nix any public gatherings due to ongoing COVID-19 social distancing concerns. While Pusutti says the decision to cancel the festivities likely isn’t a big surprise to anyone, she’s sure it still stings for people to lose another popular summer activity to coronavirus. However, she notes that not everything involving the Fourth of July has been called off, as the fireworks display will go on as it always has.

“(There) just really wasn’t a good option to have the event without major changes that really wouldn’t be honoring the tradition that we have. So cancelling was really just the only option that we could do, and so (we’re) looking at ways that we could still have the Fourth of July fireworks so that there’s some kind of sense of normalcy and something to look forward to. So we’re really ramping up our fundraising at this point to still make that happen, so that we’ve got some part of our Fourth of July tradition to carry forward.”

The Perry Fourth of July celebration is the latest annual summer activity to be called off due to COVID-19, joining the likes of the Adel Sweet Corn Festival, the Dallas County Fair, RAGBRAI, and the Iowa State Fair. To hear more from Pasutti about this and other Perry Chamber topics, listen to today’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program on air and at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.