Did you hear some folks leaning on their car horns last Wednesday afternoon?

Those were elated islanders, who took to the roads around Vashon in a car parade, celebrating the inaugurations of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Organized by Indivisible Vashon, the parade included 31 cars, festooned with patriotic bunting, balloons, flags and hand-made signs. The caravan began at the Island Center Trailhead at 188th street and then traveled south to Burton, back up through Portage and Ellisport, winding its way to Cove Road and then back through town to its starting place, where the celebration concluded in a safe, socially distanced way.

Suzanne Greenberg, who is part of a six-member leadership team for Indivisible Vashon, was in charge of planning for the parade. She said she received an important assist from Stefan Freelan, who designed the parade’s circuitous route.

For the past four years, more than 90 members of Indivisible Vashon have quietly used the old fashioned tools of ink, paper and stamps, as well as texting and phone banking, to urge people both here in Washington and around the country to exercise their right to vote in state-wide contests and the presidential election.

These citizen-activists — joined in their efforts by Vashon’s chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) — often sent out as many as 1,000 postcards per week, sometimes supporting specific candidates for office, but just as often, providing simple reminders to register to vote to strangers in swing states and also those at home.

This year, Greenberg said, the group also raised money for Fair Fight, the Georgia voting rights advocacy group founded by Stacey Abrams. Many credit Fair Fight for the final victories of the election season — run-off wins by Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in Georgia, which flipped control of the U.S. Senate to Democrats.

Additionally, the group anticipated Donald Trump’s efforts to contest the election if he did not win, urging islanders not only to vote but to join efforts to “Protect the Vote” in that case.

So for Greenberg and other members of Indivisible Vashon, Biden’s inauguration was cause for joyous celebration.

“I laughed and I cried all day long that day,” she said.

Plans for the parade were already in the works in early January, but Greenberg said that after Jan. 6 — when violent rioters, urged on by Donald Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to stop the counting of electoral college votes — her group considered calling off the celebration. The group continued to anxiously monitor serious threats of more violence at state capitols, which thankfully did not materialize.

And two days before the inauguration, Greenberg said, Indivisible Vashon sent out word that the parade was on.

“This was not a protest,” she said. “We were celebrating the duly-elected president of our country.”

Greenberg said the parade was warmly received by islanders.

“One person gave us the finger,” she said. “Everyone else on the entire route beeped and waved.”

She said that after the parade, it was hard for members of her group to stop dancing, with plenty of space between people from different households beneath the towering trees surrounding the parking lot of Island Center Trailhead.

“It was healing and wonderful,” she said.

To find out more about the work of Indivisible Vashon, visit indivisiblevashon.org.