Latter-day Saints in Coppell, Texas, marched with a large JustServe banner alongside first responders, local business owners and other religious groups during the town’s 2023 Fourth of July parade.

Latter-day Saints in Coppell, Texas, marched with a large JustServe banner alongside first responders, local business owners and other religious groups during the town’s 2023 Fourth of July parade.

Stephanie Syphus

The banner was part of other patriotic decorations that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Coppell crafted for a truck that acted as their float. This parade marked the third consecutive year that the Church has been invited to attend the event.

Parker Syphus, organizer of the JustServe float and volunteers, and quoted by The Church of Jesus Christ in North Texas website, said, “It was so wonderful; we had a great group of people that were very enthusiastic to be there. We had a lot of energy and had music pumping. We even heard from bystanders that we were the most spirited float.”

Float volunteers consisted of Latter-day Saint youth, adults and missionaries in Coppell, a community of about 43,000 people just north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The float made its way through two miles of streets lined with thousands of Coppell residents, which, according to Syphus, made for “another opportunity for the community to associate the Church and missionaries with service.”

Members of the Church in Coppell, Texas, on their parade float during the Fourth of July parade on July 4, 2023.

Stephanie Syphus

Elder Austin Brown, a missionary from Kuna, Idaho, who volunteered with the float, told The Church of Jesus Christ in North Texas that “we are here to serve the community; we want to make it a better place. It was an awesome experience and we enjoyed being part of it.”