Dylan Bellardo-Lunetta, a JHS tennis player, stands next to the light post that displays his senior banner. P-J photo by Cameron Hurst

With decorated cars, noisemakers and plenty of honking horns, members of the community took to Third Street on Thursday night to help celebrate Jamestown High School senior spring athletes whose individual seasons were taken away due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The vehicle parade coincided with the hanging of each athlete’s senior photo from light-post banners that stretch from the end of the Third Street bridge in front of Pace’s Pizzeria all the way to the intersection at North Main Street.

The 40 athletes — members of the track and field, golf, softball, baseball and boys tennis team — each stood underneath his or her banner, while community members lined up at Lincoln Elementary School before parading down to the route.

“This came about because us moms were just looking on Facebook and seeing similar towns doing this started thinking, ‘Well maybe we could do this,'” said Joanne Dean, who co-organized the parade with Melissa Rhodes and helped to gather donations to pay for the banners.

“We asked a couple people and everybody in the community was so supportive,” she said. “We could not believe how quickly the community came together for something like this, literally in a matter of hours and just the generosity of everybody.”

Jamestown High School senior Masen Maggio waves to passers-by during a vehicle parade celebrating senior spring sports athletes. P-J Photo by Cameron Hurst

While Dean is not the mother of a senior student and her oldest son is a junior, she said she felt compelled to help organize Thursday’s gesture, which included a police escort by members of the Jamestown Police Department, out of respect for the athletes she has watched grow up.

“This senior group is missing out on a lot and the spring athletes, their season, started right before schools closed,” she said. “They only got a week of practice in and it was a group within a school that I feel missed out on something that they worked for. We feel terrible for absolutely every senior and we’d love nothing more than to have banners for all of our seniors.”

Dean credited the city of Jamestown, which agreed to hang the banners on the light poles and Rob Sigler for designing the banners. Donations, meanwhile, were provided by Larson Orthodontics, ERA Real Estate, Stone Hill Homes, Slicktext and Fessenden Laumer & DeAngelo as well as additional support from the JHS Track Booster club.

“We just live in a great community,” Dean added.

“I want to thank those that did this,” said senior baseball player Jordan Russo. “It’s a really nice gesture and a really cool thing to help us make what we can out of this situation.”

“It was really interesting to see everyone come together as a community and do this,” said Dylan Bellardo-Lunetta, a member of the JHS boys tennis team. “This was really thoughtful and nice and I didn’t expect it.”

And, while Bellardo-Lunetta was disappointed about not having a chance to play this season, he said gestures like those exhibited on Thursday have helped make his senior year special.

“I get, because of the circumstance, why we weren’t able to have a season and it is very unfortunate, but I really do enjoy the fact that they did this for us … it’s really special,” added Bellardo-Lunetta.