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Gasparilla beads: Bringing home the Booty!

Where do all those beads at Gasparilla come from?

TAMPA, Fla. — Another part of the Gasparilla traditions is getting all those beads!  

People will scream for them at this weekend's parade until they lose their voices, hoping to bring home the booty! 

Buccaneer Beads is one of the parade's biggest suppliers. It's no easy feat to supply the Krewe's on the floats with tons of beads, especially when many of them want their own custom designs. But even as it came down to the last minute, this long-time bead supplier made it happen.

"We're ecstatic! I'm ecstatic!" Jennifer Amato says with a smile. With last year's parade being canceled, expectations are high!  "It's probably going to be the largest ever!"

Amato has been part owner of Buccaneer Beads for 16 years and she said planning for this year's Gasparilla came down to the wire.

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"With not knowing exactly, I had to keep in close contact with the parade committees to make sure we were going. Then I brought those trucks in right after the first of the year."

It was a rush order to be sure, but Amato says she wasn't stressed because she knew the beads would be here in time. They were coming in truckloads over the last few weeks.  

"Every pallet is normally stacked 50 cases high and on average 700 strands in a box, so you're talking hundreds of thousands if not millions of strands of beads."

Beads that will be thrown to eager hands lining the parade route will mark another year in this historic parade. "It's a Tampa tradition and to be a part of it is just amazing."

Buccaneer Beads in Tampa is open to the public leading up to the parade, so you can go and get your own beads before the parade if you really want to be decked out.

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