NORWICH – The 18th annual Parade of Lights will kick off at 6:15 Saturday night, with 63 individual groups committed to illuminating Norwich’s streets. Nine fire trucks and 24 floats will be competing to be the greatest mobile light show Norwich has ever seen with the bedazzled audience members as the true winners. The full parade line up is extensive and can be found on Page 8 of today’s edition.

One new feature this year will be a group of around 150 marchers from NBT Bank.

“With everyone home for the holidays, we thought it would be nice to show how proud we are to be a part of the Norwich community,” said Pegi LoPresti from NBT’s marketing division. The NBT marchers will be broken up into five separate sections, representative of the five states the bank operates in. One hundred thirty-five of the NBT marchers will be holding electric candles and wearing santa hats to represent each of the bank’s individual branches. “We are proud supporters of all the communities we work in and this is a great chance for us to show our support of the Norwich community. I just think this is one of the best parades and I am always amazed by the amount of people who turn out. It’s a great family event with a long standing tradition,” she said.

The Norwich City Police Department, as always, will take an active role in the parade as well.