The UPS Store® wins Judges Award for Most Outstanding Float Design and Dramatic Impact at the 2025 Rose Parade®
What a way to welcome 2025! The UPS Store® debuted their float in the 2025 Rose Parade®, titled “Helping Dreams Take Flight,” and inspired audiences to dream big. We’re proud to share that we took home the Judges Award for the most outstanding float design and dramatic impact. It was a celebration of creativity and hard work, highlighting our Start Small, Grow Big program, benefiting Junior Achievement USA®.
The UPS Store 2025 float “Helping Dreams Take Flight” features a mother pterodactyl proudly watching her two offspring soar to the sky for the first time. The float illustrates how The UPS Store supports the dreams of small business owners, our franchisees, and school-aged youth through the Start Small, Grow Big Program with Junior Achievement USA.
The Start Small, Grow Big Program launched in 2022 and has surpassed $6 million in customer donations across The UPS Store network of 5,300+ locations, striving to educate students through programming in areas such as career readiness, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy.
Read more about our 2025 float concept here.
A Look Back at The UPS Store Floats
These floats wouldn’t be possible without the help of passionate volunteers who invested hundreds of hours gluing and placing every flower, seed, and leaf into place. The UPS Store is honored to have been continuously awarded recognition for our float entries.
- 2024 float titled Beat of Achievement, recipient of the Bob Hope Humor Award, featured a 35-foot-tall, musical crocodile surrounded by a posse of flamingos and tropical birds cheering him on.
- 2022 float titled Rise, Shine & Read!, recipient of the Sweepstakes Award, featured a colorful rooster standing on a stack of books, reading to his chicks.
- 2020 float titled Stories Change Our World, recipient of the Sweepstakes Award, featured a community of Tamarin monkeys, toucans, lizards, and sun conures in a majestic tropical rainforest.
- 2019 float titled Books Keep Us on Our Toes, recipient of the Sweepstakes Award, featured a ballerina-aspiring ostrich inspired by the famous story of Swan Lake.
- 2018 float titled Books Bring Dreams to Life, recipient of the Extraordinaire Award, featured an animated sea monster that “swam” down the parade route.
- 2017 float titled Books Bring Us Together, recipient of the Isabella Coleman Award, featured a 42-foot giraffe reading books alongside animal friends and the U.S. Marine Corps teddy bear.
2024 float titled
Beat of Achievement
2022 float titled
Rise, Shine & Read!
2020 float titled
Stories Change Our World
2019 float titled
Books Keep Us on Our Toes
2018 float titled
Books Bring Dreams to Life
2017 float titled
Books Bring Us Together