Towing Company Spreads Joy With Birthday Parades

ST. CHARLES, IL – Celebrating your birthday during a statewide Stay At Home can be very difficult, especially if you're a kid. But one St. Charles company is stepping up to make it a bit easier – with tow trucks and giant banners.

Local towing company, Chad's Towing & Recovery, is spending its days traveling from neighborhood to neighborhood with colorful birthday signs and music, wishing children happy birthday from afar and providing some much-needed joy during the new coronavirus pandemic stress.

Chad's Towing has been in business for 23 years in St. Charles and owner Chad Lindemann said business has slowed significantly since fewer people are on the roads meaning less motorists becoming stranded and there are fewer crashes.

A couple of weeks a go, a friend called and asked if Lindemann could drive by with the company's tow trucks for her child's birthday. When a video of the parade was posted to Facebook, his phone started ringing off the hook.

"People just started calling us and messaging us, asking if we could do it for their kids, too," he said.

With business being slow, Lindemann and his team jumped at the chance to spread some happiness to the community. Each parade has several trucks, decorated with "Happy Birthday" banners and there are speakers playing the Happy Birthday song for the child when the trucks pull up to their home. In some cases, local fire and police departments have joined in as well.

Right now, they are doing parades in Geneva, Batavia, St. Charles and South Elgin. As the requests have started flooding in, Lindemann said they are doing five to 10 parades per day. They plan on continuing to offer the drive-by parades throughout the stay at home order and as long as requests keep coming in.

"It seems like the kids and their parents are really loving it," Lindemann said. "It feels good to give back to the community and see the kids smile at this difficult time."

Anyone who would like to request a birthday parade from Chad's Towing can call the company or send them a message on Facebook.

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