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Optimist Club lights up KayCee Gardens for the holiday season

December 12, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

It has become an Orangeville holiday season tradition. 

The lighting of KayCee Gardens turns the Bythia-to-John Street park into a Christmas wonderland for a few short weeks every year but the work that goes into making the display is a year-long effort by the Optimist Club of Orangeville.

This is the Club’s 27th year lighting up the park.

“It’s a community event. There’s 2.6 acres that we decorate,” explained Optimist Club member Melody Greenley. “It takes months. We actually work on this for 11 months of the year. That includes making the displays and repairs. We have a retirees group that work every week in a workshop making and fixing displays and working on the lights including untangling strings of lights.”

There are over 60,000 lights involved in the display. The Club members start putting everything into place in November.

“It takes us a month to get this put together,” Ms. Greenley said. “Orangeville Hydro helps out by putting the lights on the top of the trees. They start doing that in late September. This display goes right through to December 31.”

The opening ceremony featured speeches by local dignitaries and a performance by the TOYS choir from Theatre Orangeville.

The crowd counted down and the lights were turned on to illuminate the thousands of bulbs for the 2019 Christmas season.

The light display will be on every night beginning at 5:30 p.m., through to the end of the month.

Many people were delighted to find copies of the Orangeville Citizen’s Christmas Carol book that was available. The book has many Christmas carols and can be used at any Christmas function.

The books are free and available at KayCee Gardens or the Citizen office at 10 First Street.

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