When Eric Fiore and his fellow Whatcom Community College student ambassadors put their minds to something, they clearly commit.
The group of nine volunteers – alongside 10 English as a Second Language (ESLA) students and one Service-Learning student – have spent the last two months planning and constructing a 12-foot Orca-themed float, which will represent the college in this year’s Ski to Sea Blossom Time Grand Parade.
Whatcom Community College (WCC) students have marched in the parade for the past couple of years, but to have a float is a first.
And what a float it is.
On a recent visit to a storage unit where the crew has been hard at work, WCC students Eric Fiore and Bri Martin painted finishing touches to components of the float, which will be assembled on site just before the parade’s start.
Matthew Santos is the Student Life Coordinator at WCC and an advisor to the student ambassadors.
“Eric wanted to take on what I thought was a very ambitious project,” says Santos, watching them work. “I’ve been extremely impressed.”
The process began March 24, when Fiore began writing a proposal to WCC student government, requesting funding for the project, which includes sending a team to participate in the race.
“It started with an idea from Eric,” Santos says. “And the other student ambassadors were like, ‘Let’s do it.’”
“Right after our first meeting, we started talking about where we would build the float,” Santos continues. “Eric walked right over here [to Cordata Self Storage] and said, ‘Hey, do you guys have an extra space we can use?’ And they were gracious enough to say sure.”
People in the community have donated most of the materials and other necessities to create the float.
The next hurdle proved a bit bigger. Fiore – the de facto ringleader of the project’s design and construction phase – had never built a float. And the 48-year-old student had only the blurriest memories of long-ago childhood papier mâché projects.
“It was a matter of researching it,” Fiore says. “For me, the most important thing was that it was proportionate, that the size was right – and that it really popped.”
It’s clear the float will do exactly that. How could a 12-foot breaching Orca whale, complete with cresting waves and a Mount Baker background, not wow the Ski to Sea parade crowd?
Fiore estimates that he’s put in 80 hours so far, working on the float’s construction.
“I think Eric has been living here, pretty much,” Santos says with a laugh.
“The design is really simple, but a lot of work has gone into it,” Fiore admits. “I’ve never in my life sculpted anything, so that was a first for me.”
Fiore took on much of the Orca’s sculpting – though he’s quick to say other students helped. Student volunteers then papier mâchéd and painted the float’s components.
“What’s most impressive about this project are the students who are working outside their comfort zone,” says Santos. “A lot of them – myself included – never worked with chicken wire before. So to try and make an orca whale out of chicken wire was crazy.”
“Bri has been incredible,” Fiore says, nodding to the young woman painting glitter onto the Mount Baker facade. “And Jake, another ambassador who’s not here today, has also been so great, showing up on weekends.”
Bri Martin is a Bellingham High School graduate and a Running Start student at WCC.
“Bri’s going to the University of Washington in the fall; she’s got all these things going on – all of the students do,” says Fiore. “So for them to give up free time to do this has been awesome.”
Fiore attended college in Oregon in the 1990s, before leaving to start a family and a business. He’s now a full-time WCC transfer student, as well as a math center tutor, student ambassador, and member of the student senate.
“I’ve come back to school because no one else in my family has graduated from college,” Fiore says. “I have three kids and three grandkids, and I want them to say, ‘If my dad, my grandpa can do it at 48, then we can do it, too.’
Fiore and his crew hope to have many WCC students walking alongside them and the float in Saturday’s parade.
“We’re trying to get many of the different clubs on campus involved,” Fiore says.
“Because we’re such a diverse community college, the theme of our parade float is diversity,” Fiore continues. “We have international students from 26 different countries this quarter; we’re trying to represent them with our float.”
The float is also meant to celebrate sustainability. “As much as we could, all the material we’ve used are environmentally safe, including the paints, which was a challenge,” Fiore says.
Fiore has seen plenty of past Ski to Sea floats, has taken part in previous parades, and thinks the crowds lining Cornwall have never seen anything quite like what WCC is bringing this year.
But he also wants to make a different kind of impression on the young kids watching the float roll by.
“Hopefully we’ll send a message to really young people in the community, who can look forward to going to Whatcom Community College, instead of maybe a four-year school and paying all that money for tuition the first two years,” Fiore says. “It’s important that we start to recruit these really young people and get them involved.”
Fiore knows about involvement, school pride, and working hard – as do his fellow student ambassadors.
“It’s so many people being so imaginative and ambitious,” Santos says. “The tenacity that’s been put into this project is just amazing.”
There’s no plan yet for what happens to the gargantuan Orca after the parade, but Fiore would like to see it stick around.
“I suggested that we take and hang it from the ceiling in Syre Center,” he says. “I’d hate to see it just go away. It would be nice if something happened with it.”
Watch for the Whatcom Community College float – in the number 13 position – at this year’s Ski to Sea Blossom Time Parade, taking place Saturday, May 24 at noon. The parade begins at the corner of Alabama and Cornwall, progresses south into downtown, and ends at North State and York. Learn more about the parade here and the Ski to Sea race here.
