The SMS Marching Band plays, as the parade gets underway.

What started years ago as the “Sellwood Middle School Community Appreciation Day Parade” now has an additional component that volunteers call “Support Sellwood, Celebrate Sellwood” — although the support and celebration evidently is also intended to include Westmoreland, from which much of its student body comes.

On Tuesday morning, May 24, the entire school, led by the famous SMS Marching band, filed out and lined up on S.E. 15th Avenue to begin their trek through the streets of Sellwood and Westmoreland.

“The support of our community, especially our area businesses, really matters, now that our school’s enrollment has increased over the last two years — we now have the largest sixth grade classes in recent history,” remarked SMS parent volunteer Wendy Cogan.

Raising as much as $4,000, the “Support Sellwood, Celebrate Sellwood” campaign promotes businesses who donate — some of them giving a portion of the day’s receipts — to the school’s Foundation, Cogan said.

“100% of the money received goes directly to the Sellwood Middle School Foundation,” Cogan made clear. “The Foundation provides crucial funding for hiring of teaching staff at the middle school. It also underwrites elective classes and reduces all class-sizes, which helps improve quality of education the school offers.”

At about 11:15 a.m. that morning, the parade stepped out, making its way through Sellwood north to S.E. Bybee Boulevard, where the SMS Marimba Band serenaded onlookers in the parking lot of Wilhelm’s Portland Memorial in Westmoreland.

The procession then turned back south, proceeding along S.E. Milwaukie Avenue, in its return to the campus.