Luminaries 2023
The Colonial Hills Civic Association (CHCA), Worthington, wishes to express their great appreciation for the generous gift of a box of 2000 plastic grocery bags donated on November 17, 2023, by the Kroger Charitable Donations Organization, Mr. Mark Bruce, Corporate Affairs Manager, the Kroger Company. This box of 2000 bags are 200 more than what we need every two years, and completed the other necessary supplies which the CHCA purchased for our luminary kit assembly event Saturday, December 2, in which we assembled 901 luminary kits for the 838 homes in our neighborhood – each kit containing 5 pounds of pea gravel, 5 tealight candles and 5 white lunch sacks.
I also want to heartily thank each of the 32 volunteers, including 12 youth, who assembled all these kits in record time this year, by around 10:45 AM! Please see the photos below which show the seasonably comfortable weather for our volunteers that day, which miraculously (knock on wood) was the only day in the previous 7 days when it wasn’t raining!
And I cannot thank enough our CHCA Trustees, who delivered the luminary kits to each home in their district (plus their year-round work in delivering our Courier newsletters and CHCA membership packets, and some of whom have additional roles within the CHCA). Many of our trustees have served for quite a number of years, and provide a backbone of institutional knowledge and advice for the CHCA officers and their new neighbors. And as always, I must thank Al Smyth, who has continued since 2014 to backstop our event, by delivering to eight trustees who were not able this year to pick up their bundles of kits by 1:00 PM on Saturday.
For our neighborhood Luminary Display night, Sunday, December 10, again another string of heavy-raining days miraculously ceased, and the weather that evening permitted residents to comfortably walk the luminary-lined streets, admiring the outstanding holiday decorations their neighbors had put up, in celebrating the season and in hopes of bragging rights with a winner’s sign in their yard, for the upcoming Holiday Decorating Contest, Tuesday, December 19.
As I very slowly drove every street, I observed high luminary participation on all streets, with long expanses of continuous luminaries on the Selbys and Indianola, and again, as in previous years, some streets had virtually 100% participation, such as Meadoway and Park Overlook.
And thus, finally, I must thank every neighbor who set out their luminaries, to complete our wonderful Colonial Hills holiday decorations!
Will Pearce
Luminary Event Chair
(And now for the photos (Photo Credit: CHCA Webmaster) – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these pics which have the following descriptions)
_01 Inside Kit Assembly #1
_02 Inside Kit Assembly #2
_03 Outside Kit Assembly #1
_04 Outside Kit Assembly #2
