Do you remember driving down Beloit Avenue last year and feeling amazed by nearly 90,000 lights wrapped around a majority of the street’s trees? Or being in awe of the hundreds of glowing luminarias around town? This year, you can take part in creating that feeling for others.
The Wish Upon a Light paper bag and candle displays began last year as a way for Samson Reyes, Elouise Billingsley and Maya Pesanti to earn National Elementary Honors Society service hours at Field-Stevenson Intermediate Elementary School, but the event is continuing this holiday season.
And what started as Light Up Beloit last year will be expanded, as partners Rob Sall and John Cunningham are now including the rest of the village in a grassroots, community-driven effort to create cheer as temperatures drop.
“The long, gross, dark days of Chicago winters are pretty depressing,” Sall said. “We thought this was a great way to fight seasonal depression and put a little light and happiness in people’s winter and holiday season.”
Wish Upon a Light
In December 2023, 860 paper bags with LED candles and sand inside lined sidewalks across Forest Park.
This year, the Forest Park Middle School sixth graders, with the addition of Grace Meza, are making it a tradition to put together and sell the lantern kits. Last year, they donated $539 of proceeds to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The foundation will also be the recipient of this year’s proceeds, as the middle schoolers are once again selling the paper lanterns for National Junior Honor Society hours. The students are hoping to surpass the number of luminarias across Forest Park last year, but so far have sold about 560.
Each kit is $10 and includes 10 paper bags, 10 candles and sand. Those who purchase paper lanterns should set them out on Dec. 14.
Buy a lantern kit through Dec. 7 by visiting account.venmo.com/u/sdonaubauer and paying Sally Donaubauer $10. Include your address in the comment section.
Light Up Forest Park
After decorating trees on their Beloit Avenue parkway and property in 2022, Sall and Cunningham said they wanted to go bigger last winter.
So, in the fall of 2023, they passed out flyers down their block to gauge whether their neighbors wanted to join in decorating trees in their yards and parkways. They asked those who were interested to inform them about their access to power outlets, ladders, and time to volunteer putting up lights.
Beloit residents enthusiastically opted into the decorating efforts, creating Light Up Beloit last winter. An estimated 75% of the trees on Beloit, from Roosevelt to Harrison, were all dolled up after residents spent a weekend stringing lights,
“We met neighbors we had never met before,” Cunningham said. “It was fun to see everyone come out and work together on a common goal or project.”
After hearing from residents on surrounding streets about needing help with their own lights, the couple is expanding efforts to the rest of Forest Park.
They are asking for residents to wrap lights around trees on their property or the parkway. They’re also asking for volunteers to help hang wires from peoples’ houses to trees on the parkway and block captains, who coordinate who on their street needs help and who has ladders.
But if Sall and Cunningham can’t find a nearby leader for your block, residents should feel encouraged to ask their neighbor for help, or offer it up. The same goes for electricity sources – ask, or offer to share, an outdoor outlet, they said.
You can also buy an adapter that screws into a light socket, implanting an outlet between the socket and lightbulb.
After Light Up Beloit last year, Sall and Cunningham bought more than 1,600 boxes of LED, 100-count lights – all of which were sold this year for $5 a box, mostly to residents who live outside of Beloit. The couple is also accepting lighting donations. Last year, these contributions helped illuminate over a dozen trees on Beloit.
Sall and Cunningham, who were visiting Sall’s father in Nebraska in early December, are also bringing back more than 100 boxes of lights in their car to sell to Forest Park residents.
A majority of the lights that the couple purchased at the end of last season were red, blue, purple and white. They added that green lights are hard to buy in quantity.
“So, the few green trees that you do see are pretty special,” Cunningham said.
Sall and Cunningham said one of their neighbors recently drove around Forest Park south of the interstate and counted nearly 200 trees wrapped in lights. While they said those living on Beloit Avenue started decorating trees in October, anyone who wants to participate in Light Up Forest Park can do so at any time.
“We really wanted it to be a neighborhood-building, community-building, grassroots-driven effort for people to meet their neighbors, connect with their neighbors, do something fun to put Forest Park on the map for the holiday season,” Sall said.
To join the Light Up Forest Park email distribution list, complete the Google form at http://bit.ly/4gTaq02 or email robsall@mac.com or johndcunningham@gmail.com. You can also join the Light Up Forest Park group on Facebook.