Monday, November 8, 2010

November 2010 to January 1, 2011: An Elizabeth City Christmas Light Display

Good Afternoon,

We are Ken & Becky Smith and live at 811 Jones Avenue in Elizabeth City.

We feature 60,000+ lights on our property and the lights are choreographed to various musical selections.

Our goal again this year is to enhance our community and bring people together through the enjoyment of a musical Christmas lights display the likes of which most people have not experienced in this area. You can see some of our 2009 display in this video:

Last year, from Christmas Eve through New Years Day, we placed a donation collection box on the ground for folks to give if they wanted to help out a local homeless shelter. During that short period of time we received $425 in donations. On Jan 2nd 2010 we met with the CEO of Tabernacle of Faith and formally donated the funds to that great cause.

We will seek donations again this year and will again donate all funds to Tabernacle of Faith. I was reading the minutes from City Council meetings and noticed they gave $3000 to help the shelter. Our goal this holiday season is to raise at least $3000. I really do think that all charity work should be citizen based and that organizations like Tabernacle of Faith should not have to rely on the mercy of government to pursue the greater cause of helping out others who, for whatever reason, are less fortunate than ourselves.

Our lights will run from November 27th through the evening of January 1st. Display hours will be 5:00 pm - 10:00 pm Sunday thru Thursday and 5:00 pm - 11:00 pm Friday thru Saturday.

The music that accompanies the lightshow is also broadcast over a low power FM radio channel, and from speakers located on the property, so that able bodied folks can enjoy the show outside of their vehicles and so that older folks or disabled folks can hear everything without having to leave their vehicles.

This year we are adding a North Pole, fog and snow and a high security donation collection box to deter any would be thieves from making off with any of the donations. We did not have any such problem last year but an ounce of prevention is worth a lot of help to others.

Not one cent of the funds collected are used to pay any cost related to the display. My wife and I are very blessed and we love this city even though we have only lived here for 4 years now. It truly is the Harbor of Hospitality® and we intend to help bolster that image.

See ya at the lights!

Sincerely,

Kenneth W. Smith
1-757-390-8735

1 comment:

Ken Smith said...

Update: The show for 2010 went smoothly until the week after Christmas day when we experienced a beautiful weather event ... At least it was nice to see for a day then it became a nuisance to our show as the icy conditions made it hard to come see the lights.

I want to say thank you to everyone who donated. The total amount of money donated was $2,420 and some odd cents. I had predicted $3000 would be raised but the donations almost entirely stopped after the snowstorm hit.

My wife and I had the pleasure of forwarding your money to the Tabernacle of Faith Community Outreach Center as quickly during and after the display season as possible so we could make sure your money went to work quickly.

This coming year will bring some new elements to our show.

We will be adding a Santa's Workshop, if you tell the kids to watch carefully they will see Santa hard at work.

We are adding some video to our show this year. Santa and his reindeer are gonna sing White Christmas for all to enjoy. You will love it and laugh the entire time.

We will be adding a few new songs to the show, I won't tell you which ones because that would spoil the surprise but let me tell you I think one of them might just motivate you to get out in the street and start clucking like a chicken!

We are also trying to be in this years Christmas Parade with a delightfully entertaining parade float featuring ...well I can't tell you that either, but lets just say that if we are in the parade you will see a mini light show and four fun characters in costume making you smile and laugh.

Of course, the reason why we want to be in the parade is to draw attention to the Charity we support and increase awareness of our lightshow so more people will show up. We might even throw some tokens of appreciation out to the parade watchers.

We will try to add a few new things each year for your continued enjoyment. We want you to make this a family tradition and have you come back every year.

Count your blessings, not how much stuff you have, and remember ... Psalms 41:1 Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.

Visit our website, www.ElizabethCityChristmasLights.com ... it is currently being developed, bookmark the site and visit it often for updates and pictures of our progress towards this coming Christmas Season.

Our show will run every night, rain or shine, starting the Saturday after Thanksgiving through the evening of the Jan 1st 2012.

We look forward to hearing from you and meeting you as well. If you see us in the yard honk your horn or wave or stop and chat. We love talking to our neighbors.

Have a great year!

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails