Mobile Ambassadors Clean Up 44 Parades over 20 Days

When most people think ‘Mardis Gras,’ it’s usually in relation to New Orleans. But, Mobilians will remind you the first Mardis Gras took place in Mobile, Alabama. Today, Mobile celebrates its Mardis Gras history with nearly three weeks of parades that host over 1 million visitors. 

Since Mobile is only home to around 180,000 people, 1 million visitors and daily parades can take a toll on the downtown landscape. That’s where Mobile’s Downtown Ambassadors come in, and their work begins long before the partygoers arrive.  

Downtown Mobile Operations Manager Allie Barker meets with the Downtown Mobile Alliance months in advance to figure out the logistics of the multi-week event and the responsibilities that the Ambassador Team will take on. 

This year, before any parades began, Ambassadors hung district decorations, distributed promotional materials and set up event fixtures, like handwashing stations and trashcans. 

 While a few Safety Ambassadors handed out candy and stickers to promote a positive image of Downtown Mobile’s brand during the parades, the real “bread and butter” of Ambassador work, Allie said, began the morning after every parade day. 

Each day, the team arrived at 6:30 a.m. to start cleanup efforts. While street-sweeping vehicles arrived overnight to clean the roads, Ambassadors cleaned the sidewalks and other areas in the public right of way. Using leaf blowers, Ambassadors blew all trash, beads and other parade debris into piles at the end of each block to collect it more efficiently.  

“We gotta crush it,” Allie said. “We gotta get on the streets and clean, clean, clean.” 

Working their magic, Ambassadors successfully got the district back to its clean, pre-parade norm by 10-11 a.m., just in time for parade-goers to start filling the streets again. 

Parades and their afterparties lasted late into the evenings, so cleaning wasn’t possible at night. Parade debris and other garbage generated each day would be left on the sidewalks for the Ambassadors to tackle the next morning. And, like clockwork, the Ambassadors were right back at 6:30 a.m. to clean it all again. 

For 20 days, this is Downtown Mobile’s life cycle, and the Ambassadors are an essential part of it.  

“This community here is pretty cool because a lot of the people that are down here take time to stop and thank our Ambassadors, which means a lot to them,” Allie said. “You can tell by that what it means to the community.”