Grand marshal, honoree named for upcoming South Side Irish Parade

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Students from Brother Rice High School, as well as St. Walter-St. Benedict School, St. Margaret of Scotland School, Our Lady of Guadalupe School and Annunciata School, make their way into a ceremony to announce the 2025 South Side Irish Parade’s grand marshal on Wednesday. Troy Stolt/for the Daily Southtown

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By Olivia Stevens Daily Southtown

Chicago’s Big Shoulders Fund nonprofit and Brother Rice High School’s Mount Sion Program will be honored as part of this year’s South Side Irish Parade, organizers announced Wednesday.

The annual Irish heritage celebratory parade, which will step off at noon on March 16 at 103rd and Western in Chicago’s Beverly/Morgan Park neighborhood, chose the Big Shoulders Fund as grand marshal and the Mount Sion Program as honoree for 2025.

“This year, both the grand marshal and honoree organizations align with our longstanding focus of faith, family and community,” said Marianne Rowan Leslie, chair of the South Side Irish St Patrick’s Day Parade Committee.

Both honorees work to provide additional support for Catholic school students in the Chicago area.

The South Side Irish Parade is the largest community-based St. Patrick’s Day Parade outside of Ireland, according to organizers. The Ronald McDonald House was grand marshal of the 2024 Irish parade that also honored Chicago senior living facility Smith Village.

Wednesday’s ceremony in the Brother Rice High School gymnasium kicked off with a procession including students from Chicago area Catholic schools supported by the Big Shoulders Fund, which provides scholarships and other educational resources to students in underserved communities.

A bagpipe musician from the Chicago Stockyard Kilty Band led the students as they marched to the front of the gym, holding banners from St. Walter-St. Benedict, St. Margaret of Scotland, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Annunciata schools.

The ceremony’s student- focused theme continued with a choir performance from St. Francis de Sales High School students, proud parents looking on from rows of metal folding chairs.

The Big Shoulders Fund, which was honored first with its green and gold commemorative banner, serves more than 20,000 students and 72 schools in the Chicago region and in recent years expanded to northwest Indiana, serving about 20 schools and 6,000 students there, according to the organization’s website.

A major goal of the nonprofit is to help inner-city Catholic schools stay open, believing that when a Catholic school closes, the surrounding area experiences more violence and less social cohesion.

While the Big Shoulders Fund has been supporting students and schools since 1986, Brother Rice High School only recently launched its Mount Sion Program, aimed at providing personalized attention to students with moderate cognitive disabilities or significant learning disabilities.

Mount Sion students are taught in small groups for core subjects such as English and math, but join other students for elective, theology and social studies classes, according to the Brother Rice High School website. In those classes, they are supported academically and socially included by peer mentors.

Peer mentors and high school seniors Colin Dickman and JD Maloney said their participation in the program has been fulfilling as they work to promote inclusion and acceptance among the larger student body.

“Kind of just pushing them to get involved with the other guys in their class, helping them interact and do their best,” Dickman said about the four students he’s mentored since the program started during his junior year.

“They never fail to put a smile on my face,” Dickman said.

The parade queen will be announced at a fundraising event that runs from 3 to 8 p.m. on Feb. 22 at 115 Bourbon St., Chicago, with tickets costing $50 at the door. More information is available on the parade’s website, www.SouthsideIrishParade.org.

ostevens@chicagotribune.com