2020 took it’s last swing at Jefferson for the year as the Krewe of Hebe decided to postpone Mardi Gras in an emergency board meeting Wednesday evening.
The annual even, this year scheduled for February 5-7, 2021, was pushed to 2022 by the Board of Directors in an emergency meeting Wednesday night.
“Tonight the board had an emergency meeting to discuss several things about Mardi Gras this year,” said Krewe of Hebe President Amanda Turner. “Sadly, we have decided to postpone Mardi grant 2021 and push it back to Mardi Gras 2022. It was very hard and we’re all very sad as we love Mardi Gras as much as you.”
There was a lot of deliberation tonight, and we hashed out all the things that are currently going on. We have a few very important reasons for this decision. I can assure you it was not an easy decision.”
In a Krewe Members Only FaceBook group, Turner posted a live video announcing the decision and outlining the Boards reasoning.
Citing concerns over loss of volunteers due to area Krewe’s “deciding it was too risky” and backing out of parades and volunteers, the loss of TxDPS volunteers which provide additional security, the financial impact a last minute cancellation would have on the organization, and the rising number of COVID-19 cases in our area, the board reached the decision after about two hours deliberation.
“Several things that brought us to this decision are we had few Krewe’s decide it was too risky for them this year, which we completely understand, but that has a huge impact on us when we lose crews and floats,” said Turner. “For the [Queen Mab] Ball there are a lot of people who don’t feel safe attending right now. The numbers for covid are on the rise in our area and there are some people in our community that are very very sick. We want to try and protect the community as much as possible and not contribute to any other cases as much as we can.
“With those crews backing out it hurts our volunteers,” Turner continued. “We’re already short on volunteers as it is, so when we lose them it makes it that much harder on those of us still here who are already spread thin. Technically we’re in a 50 percent capacity for restaurants and businesses so that limits us.
“Other big concerns are we’re not going to have DPS this year as they are not sending out volunteers to events such as this. So, we’re concerned about security.
“Then the major part of this is the financial aspect. We’re afraid if we continue to plan and spend money on this event and something happens at the last minute, it hurts us tremendously. We have to be financially responsible for our organization. We are trying to run a non-profit organization here and if we spend money and don’t have any money coming in it really hurts us for the future and our future activities.
Turner recognized the impact the postponement of this event “may have on our small businesses, and we do feel terrible about it. But, we want to make sure we are being responsible as an organization.”
The theme, King and Queen, and bands will all move over to the 2022 event, currently scheduled for February 25-27, 2022.
Questions about the decision can be sent to Turner, or emailed to kreweofhebe@gmail.com.