Cat Purrade logo
A brand new event is coming to Arlington’s southernmost neighborhood.
The Fairlington Cat Purrade will take place on Saturday, May 17th at 4 pm. I interviewed Lauren Bailey and Diana Funk, two of the organizers, for more information.
Lauren Bailey is a mom to both cats and humans. Her job is to “organize and hype up the Cat Purrade.” She tries to get both humans and cats involved and get sponsors.
The Cat Purrade will take place in Fairlington Villages (North Fairlington) and the meeting place is 3005 S Abingdon St, the Fairlington Villages Community Center. Registration costs $5 per family and there is a Google Form to register.
Lauren told me that although it is called the ‘Cat Purrade’, it isn’t “cats parading through the neighborhood. It’s a parade of people who are interested in cats to go house-to-house to meet the cats of Fairlington.”
There is also Cat Purrade merch you can buy. The online merch store link is on the registration page. All proceeds from registration and merch sales go towards the Animal Welfare League of Arlington.
Diana Funk is the person who introduced the idea of the Cat Purrade to Fairlington.
She said the idea came from an article People Magazine published last year about a man in Minnesota, John Edwards, who has been putting on a “Cat Tour” in his neighborhood since 2017. It grew over the years so much that People Magazine covered it. When Diana read the article, she “knew that we just had to do it in Fairlington.”
When asked what the Cat Purrade is, Diana said “[Fairlington] is a very dog-friendly neighborhood and everyone knows all the dogs because they go out and get walked, but we probably have even more cats than we do dogs, but you don’t know it because they don’t get walked.” She says that “this is a cat’s time to shine.”
I asked Diana what she envisions the future of the Cat Purrade to be. “It will get bigger and bigger every year. We’re starting it small on the north side of [Fairlington] and if it goes well, in the Fall, we plan to bring it to the south side of [Fairlington] and if that goes well, we will plan to do it every year.”
About the parade, Diana says it will be “a really fun time. We are encouraging people to wear the craziest cat finery or clothing that they want to. Making signs is completely encouraged. We hope people take lots of photographs. We also have four groundlevel tickets to a Nats game this summer that we’re giving away for free, courtesy of the Washington Nationals, and we are just really excited and hope people have a great time, and of course all of the money we’re raising is for a great cause, which is the Animal Welfare League of Arlington.”
It should be noted that there are no dogs allowed on the parade.
Lauren hopes that a lot of H-B students will come and support the AWLA and come meet the cats.
Whether you live in Fairlington or not, I hope you come to the Cat Purrade!
You can contact Lauren ([email protected]) or Diana ([email protected]) with any questions.