Holiday Lights Project a Year-Long Effort
Rotary Winter Wonderland celebrated another successful year with a record number of donations.
“We exceeded all expectations for food and cash collections,” said Al Nystrom, operations and finance chair. “The Gingerbread Jamz concert series was a great success – we heard many positive comments from our performers and our guests. The displays held up extremely well over the course of the season.”
The holiday lights display enjoyed the benefits of warm weather early on, which helped set a record-breaking opening weekend. Even as the temperatures turned frigid later in the month, donations remained strong.
“The final eight days of sub-zero temperatures were a challenge, but we still averaged over 2,000 donations on those evenings,” noted Nystrom. “Our volunteers did a great job running the park, often through very harsh conditions.”
“Our volunteer groups were phenomenal again this season,” added Jenny King, volunteer co-chair. “Several organizations braved some very cold nights to make sure we could keep the gates open for anyone who had chosen those cold night to see the lights.”
The next step for the organization is to tear down the 1,500,000 LED lights that made up the display with the help of volunteers. “We will need many volunteers to take down the display on Saturdays in January,” said Nystrom.
Though Rotary Winter Wonderland only runs a month starting the day after Thanksgiving through New Years Eve, the project is worked on throughout the year.
“The Special Olympians test the lights in February and March. Once that is done, we start planning new displays and repair displays with lights out,” said Dale Smith, Chairman. “This starts in May and runs until set up unless done sooner. Consequently, this is a year long project with some breaks in between.”
“We have a great group of rangers who give of their time to turn on the lights and oversee the volunteers and activities in the park each night as well,” said King. “The phrase ‘many hands make light work,” or rather, ‘make the LIGHTS work,’ definitely applies here, as there are many people that each contribute something very important to the project’s success.”
The project is currently in need of new leaders to keep the lights running, and anyone interested should contact Rotary. “Our greatest need is for people who want to learn about how we organize the event,” said Nystrom. “We would like to expand our leadership group in 2018.”
Food will be distributed to thirty local food pantries, with peanut butter and jelly products going to the United Way’s Nutrition on Weekend Program. Any cash remaining after expenses will be donated to food pantries in June. The organization expects this amount to be at least $40,000 this year, if not more.
One of the pantries that will benefit is Soup or Socks. “We could not be more pleased with donations from Winter Wonderland,” said Cheryl Hartl, Soup or Socks director.
The increase in donations coincides with a growing need in the community for the services that food pantries provide. “In doing our stats for the month of December 2017, we served double the amount of people from December 2016,” said Hartl. “We have seen steady increase in need for last quarter of 2017. With the extreme cold we are now experiencing, we anticipate the need to continue into 2018.”
Donations allow Soup or Socks to keep its shelves fully stocked with staples for families in need, she added, as well as some extra items.
“Thank you to all who donated, volunteers and to Rotary for another fabulous year.”
