Warrior Day 2010 will kick off today at 9 a.m. with the annual parade, which features the Mortimer Jordan High School band, a helicopter and motorcycles from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and many other participants. Festivities follow at Warrior Ball Park until 3 p.m.

“Warrior Day is a celebration that lets us get together with our friends in the city as well as outsiders, and to enjoy some food and fellowship,” said Warrior Mayor Rena Hudson.

Event organizer Karin Thomas said many of the activities at Warrior Day are free, including numerous children’s attractions.

“Warrior Day is also meant to celebrate Warrior’s history; the city is over 100 years old,” said Hudson. “We’re really looking forward to it.”

An organization called “Love for Lilly Belle” will also be at Warrior Day to register people to donate bone marrow to local hospitals. The organization is named for 3-year-old Lilly Belle Kalungian, a Hayden resident that was diagnosed with Malignant Infantile Osteopetrosis (MIOP). The Kalungian family are this year’s grand marshals for the Warrior Day parade.

MIOP is a rare disease that only one in one million people are born with. MIOP sufferers cannot create blood products, such as bone marrow. Shortly after her birth, doctors told the Kalungian family that Lilly would need a marrow transplant and that her sister, Delilah, was a match.

Lilly went through several intense medical procedures, including chemotherapy, and came close to dying several times. Although the treatments have left Lilly blind, she is now in good health.

The procedure for donating bone marrow is too complicated to set up in a booth at Warrior Day, so medical personnel will only be swabbing the inside of people’s cheeks to collect their genetic information and contact them later when the marrow is needed.

The parade will begin at Warrior Elementary School and end at the Fred’s parking lot. Warrior Day festivities will end at 3 p.m.