The Colonial Hills Civic Association

The total amount of money estimated to be paid out for NIL deals (Name, Image and Likeness) in the NCAA for the 2024-25 school year is $1.67 billion. If you are getting that money, you can skip applying for the CHCA scholarship. But if you are among us mere mortals, the CHCA scholarship is nothing to sneeze at. The CHCA has awarded over $5,000 dollars the last three years and looks to continue that streak with our 2025 Scholarship award.

What do you need to do to get in on the action? Just apply, dear neighbors, apply. The completed application MUST be received by April 4 and you can download the application in MS Word format here or find the PDF format here (or use the links at the right). You can deliver your application either in person, or to be received via the CHCA e-mail address CHCA.worthington@gmail.com.

For the volunteer requirement, there are MANY opportunities coming up during this spring season, as shown in our calendar of events. DON’T MISS OUT! If you cannot make a volunteer date already set up, see a CHCA officer to talk about how you can fulfill via a neighborhood project! Make sure you enjoy the JOY of being part of this neighborhood community… and get a little something extra if you are headed into a continuing education program!

Almost 100 guests joined us inside Selby shelter house this December for our neighborhood holiday party! There were games, prizes, sugar consumption, and even Santa ! Thank you to our sponsor — Mullen Hawkins for supporting this fun tradition in the neighborhood, we could not have done this event without you!

Thank you also to the high school volunteers who helped with games, and Shauna, Leslie, and Will, my awesome adult helpers who were definitely on my Nice List this year.

Erin Zelinski Righter
Holiday Party 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 Holiday Party #1
_02 Holiday Party #2
_03 Holiday Party #3
_04 Holiday Party #4
_05 Holiday Party #5
_06 Holiday Party #6
_07 Holiday Party #7

Our rare and renowned entire-neighborhood luminary display does not happen by magic, although viewing all our streets and their holiday decorations on Luminary Display Night does seem magical! Our neighborhood display has been confirmed by a longstanding resident to go back to at least 1970 when they moved to Colonial Hills — and year after year, generation after generation, our residents make this display possible with their volunteering and participation.

So, for this year, I want to greatly thank each of our 29 adult and 13 youth volunteers, some of whom are shown in the photos, and who completed assembly of 902 kits for our 826 homes at 10:50 AM, one of the fastest times on record. And a big thanks to our Trustees (many of whom also volunteered for kit assembly) who picked up their bundles of kits for their districts, and then delivered their kits to each resident in their district.

And a shout out to two volunteers for their special work this year: to Al Symth, who for the 11th year in a row, delivered bundles of kits to the homes of trustees who were not able to pick up their bundles by 1:00 PM Saturday afternoon, including one delivery to all the homes in one district, and also to Dave Nadolny, who along with his volunteers, set out 75 luminaries, on both sides of E. Selby, in front of the apartments and condos, all the way from the St. Machael parking lot to 164 E. Selby, due to the resignation in September of longstanding apartment/condos Luminary Trustee Shelley McCoy.

And it would be bad karma to neglect to thank Mother Nature for the inexplicable weather behavior year after year (knock on wood) of giving us fairly, if not completely, non-raining, non-heavily snowing, and fairly mild days, for both Kit Assembly Saturday and Luminary Display Sunday.

So accordingly and thankfully, for Luminary Display Sunday, it was a mild 46 degrees, and the rain, which had been spitting around 7:00 PM stopped completely by 8:00 PM. As I drove each street, joy and laughter abounded, with lots of family members of all ages, both 2 and 4-legged, walking in the streets.

The long expanses of streets, with their virtually 100% participation were wondrous to see, such as on E. Selby from St. Michael all the way to Foster, the middle part of Park, and all of Meadoway, Park Overlook and Hardy Way including its front part on Park and Colonial, the northern section of Indianola, and all of E. Southington. And our other streets also had very high participation rates, around 90% — and so again, Thank You, Neighbors!

Finally, the CHCA wishes to thank our two Luminary Event sponsors for their very generous donations for this event: Erin Hunt Glowacki, the Powell Buehler Group and The Roof Detective.

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 Inside Kit Assembly #3
_04 Outside Kit Assembly #1
_05 Outside Kit Assembly #2
_06 Outside Kit Assembly #3

The Selby Park Little Neighborhood Newsstand is now available, stocked with 200 copies of The Worthington Spotlight, shown to the right of the Little Free Library in the photo below. Implemented as part of the Age-Friendly Worthington Initiative, the construction labor and the cost of materials were anonymously donated by Colonial Hills residents to the Colonial Hills Civic Association (CHCA), which worked with the City for approval of the project and the newspaper box detailed design.

The City performed the site installation on January 10, 2025. So now all that is left is for you to stop by to pick up your copy of The Spotlight, stay informed about Worthington news, and enjoy!

Below are the winners of the 2024 Holiday Decorating Contest! Congratulations and thanks to all who participated.

Best Overall Category

• Best Overall – First Place: 244 Colonial – this homage to the classic Christmas cartoons is magical. From the pics, you can hear the music playing in your head, but you don’t have to imagine it, as there’s a soundtrack playing!
• Best Overall – Second Place: 120 E Riverglen – the judges were amazed by the meticulous light placement.
• Best Overall – Third Place: 322 Loveman – blow ups and lights, oh my! There’s even a flamingo!

Front door category included front porches, yards and sometimes the whole shebang per the judges determination.

• Best Front Door – First Place: 384 Colonial – affectionately referred to as the gingerbread house by the judges.
• Best Front Door – Second Place: 212 Colonial – What a charming light display on that beautiful porch they built at the top of the hill.
• Best Front Door – Third Place: 575 Meadoway – hodge podge of awesome blowups.

Best Retro, Most Artistic and Most Lit Up Categories

• Best Retro: 287 Loveman – pure nostalgia.
• Most Artistic: 435 Park – the judges can’t believe the owners decorate that giant tree every year!
• Most Lit Up: 374 Loveman – just a perfect job!

A huge Thank You to Event Chair Dave Nadolny and his secret judges, who, along with everyone who decorated their homes for the holidays, made this wonderful Colonial Hills annual event possible!

Dave wanted to let everyone know that after the judging was completed, “The signs are up. A little history on the signs. 15 years or so ago, the CHCA decided that the annual winners should have a sign in their yard. I enlisted our local Cub Scout pack who did the festive (although odd in some cases) artwork on the back of the signs. I then stenciled the lettering on the front and waterproofed them. They’ve held up pretty well, but I think they are near end of useful life. Maybe new signs next year!”

(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 – 2nd (back of house, also decorated!)
_07 Best Front Door – 3rd
_08 Best Retro
_09 Most Artistic
_10 Most Lit Up

Calling all Colonial Hills High School students! And also two adults! Volunteers are needed to help with our neighborhood Winter Party at the shelter house, Sunday, December 15th, 3-5pm. If you are available from 2:30 to 5:30, please text the Winter Party Chair Erin Zelinski Righter at 614-599-5746.

Remember that volunteering for Colonial Hills Civic Association events in the ‘hood is mandatory for scholarship eligibility — so now is the time for high school students, especially seniors, to volunteer for this event if you haven’t already volunteered for your two events, before your schedules get even more hectic in the new year!!

Volunteers will be assisting the event chair to provide their young guests with fun, games, cookie decorating, and prizes with a side of Santa tucked in his holiday room for those who want to meet with him about any important topics prior to holiday visitation. Plus everyone gets to mingle and be merry with our neighborhood families – so please text Erin now to volunteer!

Please sign up, using our SignUpGenius, for Luminary Kits Assembly, Saturday, December 7, starting at 10:00 AM.

We hope to be completed with our assembly tasks by around 10:45 AM, the same as last year, when 32 volunteers, including 12 youth, completed assembly for 901 kits for the 838 homes in Colonial Hills. Volunteers for any task can include any youth middle-school age or older, and this event is an excellent opportunity for high school seniors to add one missing CHCA event credit for their scholarship application in 2024 before their schedule gets even more crazy!

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)

The same as the previous three years, signing up via our SignUpGenius for a given position and arriving about 5 to 10 minutes before 10:00 AM, will reserve this position for you. After all reserved positions have been filled, we will assign those volunteers who didn’t sign up beforehand, to fill any remaining inside and outside positions — and please note that we very much appreciate all volunteers, whether previously signed up or not, and we have always been able to find a position for everyone.

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 15, 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

Drum roll please!

The winners of the Neighborhood Halloween Decorating contest are:

Spookiest: 287 Loveman – Had the judges (who were mostly old enough to remember the Shining) at the Twins, but a bunch of other murder hobos as well.

Friendliest: 562 Colonial – Crazy Cat Lady.

Most Creative: 215 AND 199 E Selby – 199’s skeletons say Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, and he is summoned to 215 E Selby. The cooperation amongst neighbors clinched this one.

Best Effects: 524 Colonial – Monster House! Great lighting.

Best Activity: 427 S Selby – Photo Booth. Come take your picture sitting on the hay bales.

And Honorable Mentions go to:

1. 322 Loveman, Luau Pirates
2. 332 Colonial, Mowed over Skeletons
3. 291 Selby, March of the Skeleton Army
4. 525 Colonial, Spider Infestation
5. 363 Loveman, graveyard and a ghost that moves between the neighbor’s house and theirs
6. 524 Park Overbrook, Skeletons moving in window
7. 417 Kenbrook, Wizard of Oz

There are many other great decorations, the judges thanked everyone for making the choices so hard.

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

_01 Spookiest
_02 Friendliest
_03 Most Creative – Co #1, first house
_04 Most Creative – Co #1, second house
_05 Best Effects
_06 Best Activity

For additional photos, please see Event Chair Dave Nadolny’s October 31 and November 1, 2024 posts on the Colonial Hills Facebook Group. A great big Thank You to Dave and his secret judges!

The CHCA along with local Scouts will be collecting food Saturday morning, November 9.

Please leave your donations on your porch by 8:30 AM, along with the flyer dropped off at your home. Please make sure the donation items are placed in an area that is visible from the street.

Alternatively, if you wish, you can drop off your items at the Selby Park shelter house from 9:00 AM to 10:0 AM

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 care on Saturday morning with the many volunteers crossing our streets to pick up the food-drive donations.

A huge Thank You to Event Chair Brittany Smith for organizing and conducting a joyous Halloween Party for an estimated 150-200 young costumed characters, with another estimated 200-400 of their adults, at Selby Park last Sunday afternoon! Brittany’s volunteers staffed three different kinds of crafts at the craft table (Halloween door hangers, pop-up spiders and Halloween character and fall critter magnets) and also three games which had long lines of contestants (Spooky Ring Toss, Jack-O’-Lantern Disk, and 2 large bouncy dice, complete with math queries for the older kids), and 5 candy stations.

The CHCA greatly thanks our volunteers, many of whom are identified in the photos below. And we also thank our CHCA VP/Events Alan Miroslaw for preparing and publicizing the SignUpGenius, our President Leslie Caruso for recruiting additional volunteers, Ron Sears for setting up and testing a more automated and more generally available version of his 4th of July family-favorite Baby Button service, and with deep gratitude for her very generous sponsorship for our event, we thank Cynthia MacKenzie. Cynthia not only provided trick or treat bags, but also donated the 150 pumpkins for the Pumpkin Patch, which she and her volunteers set out in a kid-friendly configuration about a half hour before the event. And of course, none of the pumpkins were left when our witching hours were over!

The weather was perfect, a sunny and 70-degrees fall afternoon, where the young folks ran from the crafts, to the games, thru the pumpkin patch and to the candy stations, then back and forth, and to and fro …

(And here are the photos – please click the “Continue reading” link below to see these pics which have the descriptions given below – photographer credit: CHCA Webmaster)

_01 Ron with his enhanced family-favorite Baby Button service and dragon
_02 Setup almost complete, 2:45 PM, from left: Alan, Leslie, Cynthia, Mary Ann, Michelle, Ron, and Event Chair Brittany
_03 The Jack-O’-Lantern Disk game is ready
_04 The Pumpkin Patch, candy stations around the perimeter of the patch
_05 The T-rex is demanding candy from Mary Ann
_06 Spooky Ring Toss
_07 Jay is posing a math question based on the result of the dice roll
_08 Robin helps a contestant with the Jack-O’-Lantern Disk game
_09 At the crafts table, from top left: Lauren, Chelsea, Elizabeth help young crafters
_10 Bales of straw at the entrance to the Pumpkin Patch
_11 Lots of fun at the patch – kids, dogs, wagons, adults, oh my!