Today the Krewe of Red Beans announced plans to cancel all its parades in 2021 to avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus. In an effort to keep both the marching members and the audiences safe, the krewe’s three parades will not march on Lundi Gras, February 15, 2021. This includes the Krewe of Red Beans; the Dead Beans parade; and its newest parade, Brazilian-themed Feijao.

“In good conscience, we cannot parade because we do not want to create a super spreader event. Realistically, audiences will not be standing six feet apart and all wearing masks,” says Krewe of Red Beans founder Devin DeWulf. Instead of the parades, the krewe is planning a safe “bean art” event on its parade routes.

However, the krewe has been very active in the time of COVID-19.  With Feed the Front Line NOLA, held from March to May, Krewe of Red Beans raised $1.2 million to support NOLA’s restaurants, Feed Health Care heroes, and created jobs for unemployed musicians ($100,000 paid as gig-delivery workers). In their ongoing Feed the Second Line fundraiser, the have collected $242,000 worth of gig-work created for our city’s culture-creators (musicians, Black Masking Indians, Babydolls, artists) that to date has purchased $ 100,000+ of groceries for culture-bearer-elders. Over the summer, they promoted mask-wearing with a $10,000 prize. This effort increased mask wearing in four target areas in New Orleans, where COVID-19 positive-rates were the highest.

While the Krewe is disappointed that circumstances will not allow for a safe parade season in 2021, they look forward to coming back even stronger in 2022.   “We look forward to a huge year on Monday, February 28, 2022,” said DeWulf, in closing.