The Colonial Hills Civic Association

Luckily, the super cold and snowy weather held off until after our contest! The winners are:

• Best Overall – First Place: 244 Colonial – The judges gasped, then squealed with delight at the wonderful Whoville display.
• Best Overall – Second Place: 291 E Selby – BIG Santa and Frosty.
• Best Overall – Third Place: 212 Colonial – Although the address is hard to see in the dark, it sure is pretty with the unique colorful lights.
• Best Front Door – First Place: 63 Southington – With its simple, sweet and heartfelt “Merry Christmas door”.
• Best Front Door – Second Place: 384 Colonial
• Best Front Door – Third Place: 581 N Selby
• Best Retro: 322 Loveman – Hula Santa and friends. Hawaii sounds good right now, yes?
• Most Artistic: 551 Park Blvd – Our judges called this one “HO HO HO Ha Ha Ha” with its 3 bushes dressed up as Santa. So creative!
• Most Lit Up: 287 Loveman – A wonderful yard full of “Island of Lost Toys” figures and plenty of sparkle!

(And here are the pics, with photo credits to the Secret Judges – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these photos)

_01 Best Overall – 1st Place
_02 Best Overall – 2nd
_03 Best Overall – 3rd
_04 Best Front Door – 1st Place
_05 Best Front Door – 2nd
_06 Best Front Door – 3rd
_07 Best Retro
_08 Most Artistic
_09 Most Lit Up

I want to thank each of the 24 volunteers, including 8 youth, who assembled 899 luminary kits for the 838 homes in our neighborhood on Saturday, December 3. Although it was raining heavily earlier in the morning, by 10:00 AM when we started kit assembly, the rain had completely stopped and the weather was comfortable for our outside volunteers (please see the photos below).

All but six Trustees were able to pick up their completed bundles of kits before 1:00 PM, and so volunteers delivered their bundles to them, which included one large bundle for which volunteer Al Smyth delivered the kits to all homes in this District due to Trustee illness. And thus my special appreciation to Al, who has been “backstopping” the kit assembly event with multiple Trustee bundle deliveries each year since 2014!

And last, but not least, I thank our Trustees who deliver the luminary kits to each home in their District (plus delivering the Couriers and CHCA membership packets, and many of whom have additional roles within the CHCA).

Colonial Hills was blessed with great weather for our Neighborhood Luminary Display, which includes the luminaries ringing Selby Park, on Sunday, December 11, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM. As I drove the streets in the Hills that evening, I estimated that we had approximately 95% overall participation, with long expanses of continuous displays on Indianola and the Selbys, and some streets such as Meadoway and Park Overlook with virtually 100% participation!

In fact, even with driving very slowly, windows rolled down and flashers on, I felt as if my vehicle was an intruder on the streets which, along with the sidewalks, were filled with folks, including strollers and pets, enjoying the great weather and our amazing holiday decorations. And of course, I had to park by the curb for about five minutes, to become part of the ongoing crowd of children (and adults) marveling at the awesome display at a certain home.

And finally, I must thank every neighbor who set up their luminaries in front of their residence, and those who decorate their homes for the season, to make our Colonial Hills holiday celebration uniquely jolly.

Will Pearce
Luminary Event Chair

(And now for the photos (Photo Credit: Barb Schwartz-Lilly) – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these pics which have the following descriptions)

_01 Outside Kit Assembly #1
_02 Outside Kit Assembly #2
_03 Shoveling #1
_04 Shoveling #2
_05 Completed Kits
_06 Preparing Bundles for Trustees
_07 Outside Kit Assembly #3

Please sign up, using our SignUpGenius, for Luminary Kits Assembly, Saturday, December 3, starting at 10:00 AM.

Note that due to respiratory illness concerns for our luminary kits event, we will again be limiting the number of volunteers – similar to 2021, and that there will again be only one shift for volunteers, from approximately 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM.

In particular, to try to ensure the safety of all volunteers and their families at home, we will encourage that masks be worn for the tasks inside the-shelter house, where we will again have eight separate workstations, so as to try to maintain some social distancing. Volunteers for any task can include any youth middle-school age or older, due to the availability of effective vaccines for COVID and influenza this year.

Please sign up for one of these positions:

• Inside the shelter house component assembly (up to 2 volunteers per each of the 8 workstations)
• Outside the shelter house component assembly (up to 9 volunteers, plus the Event Chair)
• Bundling supervisor (1 volunteer)
• Pea gravel shovelers (up to 8 volunteers), who are requested to bring their own standard-size, pointed-tip garden shovel. There will be teams of two people at each of the 4 shoveling station chairs. Each shoveling team can decide how long each member will shovel, while the other team member holds open the grocery bags (team members could switch roles halfway through)
• Bundles concierge (1 volunteer)
• Take down / clean up (1 volunteer)

Pease note that even if you didn’t sign up beforehand on our SignUpGenius, but do show up to volunteer at 10:00 AM on Saturday morning, there may still be an open position for you to volunteer. However, we request that you do sign up ahead of time, and arrive a few minutes before 10:00 AM to reserve the volunteer position of your choice.

Dunkin’ donuts, coffee and hot chocolate will be served, and plenty of hand sanitizer will be provided inside the shelter house.

Regarding the Trustees picking up their bundles of kits for their Districts: We are asking the Trustees to start coming over no earlier than 11:30 AM on Saturday morning to pick up their bundles, so as not to increase the number of people present in the shelter house area during the kit assembly timeframe, which is expected to be 10:00 AM to about 11:30 AM, especially if it is not raining too hard that day.

Light Your Luminaries! Our luminary display evening will be Sunday, December 11, starting at 7:00 PM per the instructions which will be enclosed in each resident’s luminary kit.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, or if you encounter any difficulty using our event’s SignUpGenius.

Thank you,
Will Pearce, Luminaries Event Chair
365 S. Selby Blvd
614-888-8236
willpearce@columbus.rr.com

This upcoming Saturday morning, November 12, will be a very busy time in the Hills – please drive carefully while these two events are being conducted:

1) 9:00 AM – The Kilbourne Middle School (KMS) second annual “Hot Chocolate 5k.”

To register, please click the following link, which will take you to the KMS PTSA’s memberhub.com store web page, and click the Hot Chocolate 5k icon: Kilbourne Middle School Hot Chocolate 5k

The registration fee is $25.00 for all age groups, and the KMS Hot Chocolate Run course is identical to the CHCA 4th of July 5k course:
.
Please feel free to contact Wendy Swonger wswon0109@gmail.com with any questions or concerns.

2) The annual Neighborhood Food Drive – the CHCA along with local Scouts will be collecting food Saturday morning.

Although we request that you leave your donations on your porch by 8:30 AM, along with the flyer dropped off at your home – due to the KMS Hot Chocolate 5k at 9:00 AM with runners in the streets, we probably won’t be by your house to pick up your donations until starting around 10:00 AM. Or, you can just drop off your items at the Selby Park Shelter House around 10:00 AM.

Please note: However, if you wish to drop off the items yourself, starting earlier, around 9:00 to 10:00 AM – please be very careful – and approach the shelter house from the north side parking lot – be careful of any runners/walkers in the street on the south side of the shelter house (South Selby) and of runners in the other streets shown on the map above (almost every street in Colonial Hills).

The most needed items are:

• Canned goods
• Ready to eat meals
• Beans, rice, chicken, broths
• Cereal and peanut butter
• Personal hygiene items

Please drive with the utmost care on Saturday morning with all the runners in the streets, and the many volunteers crossing our streets to pick up the food drive donations.

The clouds were ominous and luminous and the black cats (3!!) were prowling on Park Overlook as our judges were scouring the neighborhood in search of creative, spooky, and friendly house and yard designs with activities and special effects. They were not disappointed! It’s never an easy task to select winners in the winningness of neighborhoods, but hard choices had to be made.

Special Honorable Mentions to the following:

• 5785 Andover for the tall ghost and Big spider
• 445 N. Selby where skeletons rose from the grave to attach the house of the Pumpkin Patch
• 382 Loveman for its Ghastly Ghosts
• 417 Kenbrook for the OZ theme and green flying witches
• 583 Loveman with Sponge Bob and his freaky friends

Thanks to everyone who decorated and added to our neighborhood’s spooky Halloween atmosphere.

And the WINNERS are: (Cue a big Minor chord on the organ!!)

SPOOKIEST: 287 Loveman – Featuring Big Black Cat, Halloween movie villains Freddie K and Michael Myers.

FRIENDLIEST: 73 E. Riverglen – A big yard full of fun vignettes, and a Bates Motel sign in the window. This home is friendly all year long with decor for nearly every holiday and OSU game.

MOST CREATIVE: 524 Colonial – The Monster house is alive! Along with Halloween greetings and fog effects.

BEST ACTIVITY: 363 Loveman – there will be a spook house to enter on Halloween, also there is so much activity for the eyes: holograms, flying ghost, bass playing skeleton and a ghastly greeter.

BEST EFFECTS: 427 S. Selby – Our judges loved the skeletal Bengals fan watching the hologram TV show! And the fire pit was a very nice touch. Look for the Wicked Witch of the East (well, her feet, anyway) near the graveyard.

(And now for the photos (Photo Credits: Secret Judges) – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these pics which have the following descriptions)

_01 The Clouds Were Ominous …
_02 And Black Cats Were Prowling on Park Overlook
_03 Spookiest
_04 Friendliest
_05 Most Creative
_06 Best Activity
_07 Best Effects (Daytime)
_08 Best Effects

A Festival of Faiths & Nations — with food, music, games, entertainment and prizes — will be held Sunday, July 24, from 4 to 7 PM, at Selby Park, 358 N. Selby Blvd.

All are welcome to this free of charge, family friendly, alcohol and drug free event, to which Worthington Interfaith Neighbors invites everyone — a gathering for people of all faiths, cultures and national backgrounds, and a great opportunity to meet Worthington neighbors of cultures and faiths different from your own, some of whom may be recent immigrants.

You can purchase food from the Ninja Bowl Japanese Street Food truck or bring your own picnic, while you enjoy live music from Beth Owen and Al Belasco (Klezmer Musicians) as Bublitschki.

Co-Sponsored by Worthington Community Relations Commission and Worthington International Friendship Association (WIFA).

This is the repository/retrieval for CHCA administrative and historical documents, in PDF format.
(if there is a link “Continue reading CHCA Administration” below, click it to display the archived items).

This is the repository/retrieval for CHCA administrative documents, in Word and Excel format.
(if there is a link “Continue reading CHCA Administrative Documents” below, click it to display the archived items).

Although the temperature eventually climbed to 90, the humidity was low and there was a slight breeze as Colonial Hills rejoiced in being able to come together at Selby Park to celebrate the 4th of July!

We greatly thank the Event Co-Chairs Gina Bjelac and Jessica Salerno, who worked for months to plan the event, along with consultation from former Event Chairs AJ Perry and Jenny Kendall. And a big thanks to the following neighbors, who year after year, provide leadership and key services in making our celebration so enjoyable: Courtney Jolley and Jeff Spain for organizing the 5K Race, Mary Ann Ogle for directing the Kiddie Parade, and Matt Steidle for performing his wonderful live music and serving as emcee at various times during the morning. And the City of Worthington, for the Police Officer and Cruiser who led the race, and Parks & Rec for maintaining the shelter house, grounds and infrastructure so well.

The 4th of July is the CHCA’s most complex event by many orders of magnitude, and we could not make it happen without the multitude of volunteers who so generously volunteer their time and resources. The list is too long for inclusion in this article, but we would like to list these volunteers by group to thank them for their work this year: those who signed up ahead of time via our SignUpGenius; family members of Gina, Jessica and Mary Ann; those folks who helped with Race Day support; the judges for the Kiddie Parade; the four intrepid volunteers from CHES (your students certainly knew who you were and accordingly rewarded you with respectful dunks in the tank!); and the CHCA Board, including our President, who oversaw the festivities and conducted the Watermelon Eating contests and balloon tosses: our VP/Events who provided, and helped set up, the canopy tents; our VP/Communications who took photos; and our Treasurer who sold wristbands and secured the cash.

Race Results

Indeed, it was a great day for a 5K! Congratulations to everyone who participated, whether running, walking, or a combination of the two.

Kudos to the overall winning runners Jonathan Allen (15.42.9) and Christina Nash (21.56.0).
And special congratulations to Jonathan for setting a new Course Record with this year’s race!

Click on the links below to view:

• Overall Finish List Results
• Results by Age Group
• Our Race Results Archive, 1998-2022
• Or, select the Race website Results tab for searchable and age-group results

Kiddie Parade Winners, by Category

Bicycles
1st Place- TIE Evie Miller (5yrs) and Eli Mertz (11yrs)
2nd Place- Eli Fry (5yrs)
3rd Place- Maddox Puskar (7yrs)

Wagons and Floats
1st Place- Hudson Spain
2nd Place- Noah Mertz
3rd Place- Colleen, Casey, Rowan, Sophia, Zenna and Lauren Centrone

Scooters
1st Place- TIE Henson Brannan-Smith (8yrs) and Oscar Clark (6yrs)
2nd Place- Gabriel Calhoon (3yrs)
3rd Place- Mae Smith (9yrs)

Strollers
1st Place- Hudson Spain
2nd Place- Annalise and Riley Sherman
3rd Place- Ariel Spain

Dogs and Walkers
1st Place- Anna Schraff with dogs Krane and My
2nd Place- John Jones with dog Frankie

Notes: If you did not collect your prize ribbon at the awards presentation on the 4th, Mrs. Ogle will give your ribbon to you Tuesday, July 12, at the shelter house during the CHCA Meeting.
If there are any corrections to the above information, please e-mail the CHCA Webmaster.

*** ***

(And now for the photos – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these pics which have the descriptions given below – Photographer credits for photos #4, 5, 13 and 17: Chris Rule, VP/Communications; #18: Joe Arcilla; and the rest: CHCA Webmaster).

_01 5K Race Finish Line
_02 Setup Complete, 9:23 AM
_03 The Big Tent, 9:25 AM
_04 Start of Kiddie Parade, 10:00 AM
_05 Kiddie Parade Participants
_06 Mary Ann (in White Top) Directs the Kiddie Parade
_07 Kiddie Parade Cruising
_08 Lindsay Provides Crafts (left); Face Painting (right)
_09 Face Painting
_10 Karen’s Got ‘Em Sliding with Great Form!
_11 Bounce House
_12 Instructing Contestant in Plinko
_13 Emma Maintains Order in the Line!
_14 The Pitcher Steps Up and Throws!
_15 Nice Pitching Form – a Bulls Eye!
_16 Watermelon Contest, Sophia (at left in blue) Wins! (Lauren Carter Best Donated Prize)
_17 Balloon Toss Competition, Leslie Referees at Center Back
_18 Matt Steidle

Our Fourth of July in Colonial Hills at Selby Park is back live and in person after a two-year hiatus! Here is the schedule of activities, with something available for all, and here’s the link where you can sign up to volunteer to help:

• 8:30 AM Sharp! – Start of the 43rd Annual 5K “Run Through the Hills.” Please pre-register here now, before you forget!
  This online pre-registration will cut off at midnight July 2, but you will still be able to register race day in person starting at 7:30 AM, using a credit or debit card to pay.
  Please try to come over to the shelter house between 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM on Sunday, July 3 to pick up your race bib the evening before the race, to lessen the intense activity during the hour before the race starts on July 4. And although the traditional awards for overall F/M best time, and for first, second, and third-place by age and gender category will again be given after the race — remember that this race is about having fun, challenging yourself, and that you can walk as much of the course as you want! We hope to see you there, it’s going to be a great day for a 5K!


• 10:00 AM – Kiddie Parade: Independence Day theme decorated bikes, trikes, wagons, kids, adults, pets, floats, scooters and anything else with wheels! The participants will circle the park, up to three times, while the judges and onlookers enjoy the “parade.”


• 10:30 AM – Inflatable Water Slide – Mickey Mouse Bounce House – Dunk Tank – Midway Games – Face Painters – Live Music – Food Trucks (Ajumama – Korean Street Food and free for everyone on a hot day Kona Ice, sponsored by The CyMack Group). Remember to bring swimwear and towels for the slip and slide, but to keep dry, don’t stand too close to the dunk tank while one of four intrepid volunteers from CHES taunt your throwing accuracy!


• 11:15 AM – Watermelon Eating Competition – One competition for youth under 18 and one for adults.


• Noon – End of activities – Don’t be late!

$5.00 wristbands for anyone over age three will be sold, to allow for unlimited access to the water slide, bounce house, dunk tank, midway games and face painters, with all funds generated going for the CHCA scholarship awards and for support of all the other CHCA activities and services throughout the year. Note that children three and under are free for all activities, and also that Kona Ice and the watermelon eating contest are free to everyone!

And remember all these wonderful events will require wonderful volunteers, to sign up via our SignUpGenius, which would be a convenient way for upcoming high school seniors to meet their CHCA service requirements for eligibility for CHCA scholarship grants in the spring.

We can’t wait to see you there for our traditional Colonial Hills 4th of July!