Belleville Lake boaters present lighted boat parade

A lighted boat parade Sunday night, filled with music and tributes to first responders, delighted the Belleville community.
One woman, who lives in a condo on North Liberty Street in the city of Belleville, said she had gone to bed and heard more lake noise than usual on Belleville Lake. She said that hearing noise is not unusual, but this was something different.
She got up and threw open her doorwall, “And what to my wondering eyes should appear…It was spectacular.” It was more than 200 lighted boats on the lake in a parade next to her home.
This was the work of Chris Donley of Van Buren Township who likes to organize boat events. In the past he has organized Sand Bar parties for the Air Show, always with a purpose. The events have earned money for Wounded Warriors, Cancer Society, and one year earned $4,500 for the local Boys and Girls Club.
Sunday’s event was to honor the first responders in this fight against coronavirus. Donley said this is the first lighted boat parade on Belleville Lake in his memory.
He said he and others had put together small pontoon boat parades on Belleville Lake to celebrate the birthdays of friends during the coronavirus quarantine. People were experiencing difficult times and he wanted to do something.
About two weeks ago, he noticed that the weather was going to be good over Memorial Day weekend, so he thought about having a boat parade to honor first responders during the daytime.
But, he realized the lake was busy during the daytime. How about the first-ever lighted boat parade at night?
He put his idea out over social media and hoped he could get maybe 60 boats. When more than 200 turned up, he was absolutely blown away, he said.
“This boating community always responds,” Donley said on Monday. “They step up, get involved and never cease to amaze me.
“I love this town,” he said, noting he was plagarizing Craig Atchinson who uses this statement in his television advertising for the local Ford dealership.
“If you build it, they will come,” Donley said.
And they just came, he said.
Donley said in planning the event he called the police and fire departments of Belleville, Van Buren, and Sumpter and they all supported the event.
Fire trucks, police cars and EMTs, with lights flashing, lined the Belleville Bridge with sirens blaring when the boats paraded by.
“They were waving at us and honking their horns,” he said. “We held up ‘Thank you for your service’ signs.”
Derek Rafferty volunteered a DJ pre-party from the lakeside deck in front of his home on North Liberty Street near the bridge. Rafferty does a virtual Facebook party every Saturday. He played music for an hour and a half until Donley gave three airhorn blasts as a signal to start the parade.
The boats headed east to the area of Sandy’s Marina to line up for the parade and then came west as a parade.
Donley said people flashed their porch lights off and on as the parade went by and they used flashlights to signal the boats.
With Donley’s boat leading the parade, they went under the Belleville Bridge past the sandbar and to the west, then back to Mission Pointe and past Donley’s home on West Huron River Drive and, “We kept the loop going.”
It took two and a half hours for the parade, he said, and they never made it all the way back to Sandy’s Marina, turning back at the powerlines.
Donley said at Justin Juriga’s house Juriga had a flag blowing in the wind projected on his house and Donley played, “Proud to Be an American.” Some boat owners had arranged Christmas lights in the forms of flags and other had lighted patterns of flags they rolled out.
At about 11:30 p.m. it all ended and everyone went home to rest.
“I think this is going to be an annual event,” Donley said.