Cal Poly Rose Parade float helps ‘Dreams Take Flight’

Brightly colored chrysanthemum and roses, citrus fruit and purple kale those are some of the items Cal Poly Pomona and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo students are using to decorate the Cal Poly Universities’ float as the final days before the Rose Parade wind down.

Students from the two universities along with volunteers are giving life to the universities’ entry in Monday’s Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade.

“We took it back to our younger age,” said Jon de Leon, a fifth-year student, majoring in mechanical engineering at Cal Poly Pomona who lives in Walnut but who calls Long Beach his hometown.

The Cal Poly Universities float, “Dreams Take Flight” depicts three young animals — Paula the Koala, Ollie the Otter and Rusty the Red Panda — as they take to the sky aboard handcrafted cardboard airplanes. The float, which is the 70th the universities have entered, represents the creativity of children and youth.

The float fits right in with the 2018 parade’s overall theme, “Making a Difference,” said Jerica Hurtado, president of Cal Poly Pomona’s Rose Float Committee.

The float depicts “three animals you would not see together in nature,” said Hurtado, a secondyear master’s of business administration student from Salinas who is living in Pomona.

Students typically incorporate animation in their float and this year is no different. The animals’ planes will move as if they were in flight as will a series of paper planes, said de Leon.

Brent Hollinger, a resident of Upland who is a fourth-year student majoring in kinesiology, is Cal Poly Pomona’s decorations chairman. With the help of hundreds of volunteers the float has been moving along on schedule.

Students and volunteers have been using an assortment of flowers and other natural materials to give color to the float. For example, coffee grounds and almond shells give the otter its color, Hollinger said.