Are you looking to hand out freebies with your info to the crowd? I know the one thing that I never throw out are the free pens I get. Discountmugs.com has a lot of options and ships free. Maybe a pen and a flyer describing your dc?
As far as the float- what are you using? Is it a vehicle or are you just walking in the parade? If you are looking to attract kids (and their parents) a BIG bunch of balloons (as in the movie "Up!") would get their attention. You could possibly hand those out to some of the kids that are closest to the float and give their parents a pen.
