“Pun intended,” says Karen Kenney, “this could be a real shot in the arm [to the community].”

The Gaspee Days Parade is already looking to be the next best thing to a vaccine and shaking off a year of COVID blues. Last week, the Gaspee Days Committee voted unanimously to plan for a parade this year, and within 24 hours of setting up a GoFundMe page, more than $3,000 had been raised toward a goal of $35,000.

Kenney, second vice president of the committee and parade chair, said Monday, “the community is just thrilled to have something.”

Planned, assuming state regulations allow, is a smaller parade with a focus on colonial units and local groups. Kenney said proper distancing and the wearing of masks would be stressed to make for a safe event.

The committee voted to reschedule the traditional Memorial Day weekend Arts & Crafts Festival that provides the funding for the parade to September. The Block Party will also be held in September, on a date to be announced.

It scratched the Music in the Park event, which traditionally precedes the parade by a week, as well as the colonial encampment and the Sunday in the Park event that follows the parade at Pawtuxet Park. But there will be the burning of the Gaspee in Pawtuxet Cove on the Saturday of the parade, assures Gina Dooley, president of the committee.

Dooley set up the GoFundMe page and within hours her phone “blew up” with calls. She couldn’t believe the response, ranging from $1,000 from a friend in Florida to scores of $20 donations.

“It’s our community support. They want that parade,” she said.

So as to scale back the parade and reduce costs – saving about $15,000 – neither the Clydesdales nor the Mummers are being invited. Dooley said applications would be sent to Wyman and St. Peter schools and to local Boy and Girl Scout troops. Community high school bands are also being invited.

The Gaspee 5K, traditionally held the morning of the parade, will be held virtually as it was last year. The Pawtuxet Village walking tour may be piggybacked with the September Arts & Crafts festival, depending on what’s happening with schools.

“It’s going to look different,” Dooley said of this year’s Gaspee events. “We would rather pare back this year and go full tilt next year.”

2022 will be the 250th anniversary of the burning of the Gaspee. Dooley is hopeful that this year’s events leave a full kitty for Stephen Miller – the committee’s first vice president, who will be president next year – to stage a spectacular series of events.

Ideas under consideration for the 250th include a paddleboard race from the site of Sabin’s Tavern, where colonists set off to burn the British tax-collecting schooner Gaspee, to Namquid Point (now Gaspee Point), where the ship went aground. Also being considered are having more than one tall ship visit and coordinating an event with WaterFire in Providence.

Dooley said the committee was encouraged to plan for the parade when they heard that the Bristol Fourth of July parade voted to hold that event. There’s the chance that pandemic regulations could force the committee to cancel the parade, but for the moment it’s a go, and Dooley and Kenney are finding a lot of believers.

Kenney has put out the word for parade volunteers. She is looking to recruit people to walk the route of the parade as well as shuttle parade participants back to their vehicles in Warwick after having marched down Narragansett Parkway to Pawtuxet Village. She can be reached at kkenney@gaspee.org.