Fellows gardens celebrate winter

By Denise Dick

The Winter Celebration’s highlight is Gardens by Candlelight, Dec. 14.

YOUNGSTOWN — More than 30 Mahoning Valley groups and agencies decked the halls of Fellows Riverside Gardens’ D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor Center for Mill Creek MetroParks’ annual Winter Celebration.

The event runs Saturday through Jan. 4 in the center and through the gardens. This year’s theme is Golden Holiday in recognition of the gardens’ 50th anniversary.

This marks the second year that area groups have decorated trees inside the center.

“It’s great to work with the different groups,” said Keith Kaiser, horticulture director at the gardens. “Some people don’t even know about all of the groups.”

The trees, all Canaan firs, came from the Mahoning Valley Landscaping and Nursery Association.

The highlight of the Winter Celebration is Gardens by Candlelight from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Dec. 14. Admission is free, although the park asks that attendees bring non-perishable canned goods as a donation to Second Harvest Food Bank of Mahoning Valley.

Gardens by Candlelight offers indoor and outdoor activities.

“They’ll follow a path lit by 1,000 luminaries,” Kaiser said.

A snow carver will demonstrate his craft at Kidston Pavilion. A gardens volunteer dressed as a winter character will be on the gazebo, and the north terrace will warm visitors with a bonfire.

“People will be able to look out at the city and see all of the lights,” Kaiser said.

Inside are holiday plants, lights, music, hot chocolate, coffee and cookies. Photographs capturing the gardens through the years line the center’s main hallway while the trees decorated by groups and agencies fill the building.

Kristina Nicholas, development and business manager of the Children’s Museum of the Mahoning Valley, decorated her agency’s tree with large candy canes, multicolored twisted pipe cleaners and construction-paper chains.

“It’s Candyland,” Nicholas said of the theme.

Bizzy Towne is a feature of the celebration geared toward children, said Linda Kostka, park director of development and marketing.

Friends of Riverside Gardens member Lori Mowad, of Poland, designed the room that features an area for young ones to dress up, play insect tic-tac-toe or hopscotch or create a bouquet.

Struthers High School’s leadership group, Dobbins and Springfield elementary schools, Boardman High School, Sebring and Columbiana schools, Home Depot of Boardman and other groups helped construct the town for tots.

Leann Rich, manager of education and extracurricular relations for the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, decorated that agency’s tree with vintage flair. Lights and ornaments from the 1950s and 1960s circle the tree.

“This reflects what we’ve done at the museum on Wick,” Rich said, where six rooms are adorned with vintage holiday decor.

Mary Farragher, a liaison and teacher at the SMARTS — Students Motivated by the Arts — Center, decked out their tree with blue and green cards made by pupils enrolled in the program.

The center, affiliated with Youngstown State University and housed in the DeYor Performing Arts Center, offers free art and music classes to young people in kindergarten through grade 12.

denise_dick@vindy.com